If you are interested in making changes to the Steemit.com website, you will need to setup a local instance of the website to work on. Here are the instructions to do so!

The steps below are basically the instructions from the <a href="https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com">Steemit.com GitHub Repository</a>, with some minor variations / updates based on some hurdles that I ran into and overcame when I was following the steps. 

I have run these multiple times on a clean Ubuntu 16.04 system, and they should work exactly "as-is" on Ubuntu 16.04. There are also variations in the <a href="https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com">GitHub Repo</a> for OS X, and Debian based Linux.

## Clone Steemit.com from GitHub

```
git clone https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com
```
 
## Create a "tmp" directory
```
cd steemit.com
mkdir tmp
```

## Download and Load NVM
```
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.1/install.sh | bash

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
```

## Verify NVM is running

```
command -v nvm # verify
```
(It should output nvm)

## Install Dependencies

```
nvm install v6
npm install
npm install -g babel-cli
```

## Create Config File

```
cd config
cp steem-example.json steem-dev.json
```

## Generate a Secret String

```
node
> crypto.randomBytes(32).toString('base64') 
> .exit
```
(Copy the string that was output.)
(It will look something like this: MQd4aPyBhnHhjeEoqKb7m1QFVuTTYZFtWyGkfejgSbo=)

## Save your secret string to the config file
```
nano steem-dev.json
```
1. Choose and enter a MySQL root password (you will use this later)
2. Paste the secret string in for 'server_session_secret'
http://i.imgsafe.org/953c48a22f.png

## INSTALL SQL
```
cd ..
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
(Enter the MySQL root PW that you used above when prompted)
```

## Run MySQL
```
mysql -u root -p
(enter password)
```

## Create the "steemit_dev" database
```
> create database steemit_dev;
> quit
```

## Install sequelize-cli globally
```
npm install -g sequelize sequelize-cli pm2 mysql
```

## Configure the MySQL Password in the config file
```
cd db
cd config
nano config.json
(enter pw)
```

## Run sequelize db:migrate in db/ directory
```
cd ..
sequelize db:migrate
```

## Launch Steemit.com
```
cd ..
npm start
```

## Wait until it shows "Application started on port 3002".
http://i.imgsafe.org/952af6445c.png

## Connect to your local steemit.com instance!
```
http://123.456.789.001:3002/
```
(Use the IP address of your system)

## That's it!

If you have any questions, let me know and I will do my best to help :-)