diff --git a/docs/MANUAL.md b/docs/MANUAL.md
index b23a2457..a6640bb8 100644
--- a/docs/MANUAL.md
+++ b/docs/MANUAL.md
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ The recommended way to operate oragono as a service on Linux is via systemd. Thi
 The only major distribution that currently packages Oragono is Arch Linux; the aforementioned AUR package includes a systemd unit file. However, it should be fairly straightforward to set up a productionized Oragono on any Linux distribution. Here's a quickstart guide for Debian/Ubuntu:
 
 1. Create a dedicated, unprivileged role user who will own the oragono process and all its associated files: `adduser --system --group oragono`. This user now has a home directory at `/home/oragono`.
-1. Copy the executable binary `oragono`, the config file `ircd.yaml`, the database `ircd.db`, and the self-signed TLS certificate (`fullchain.pem` and `privkey.pem`) to `/home/oragono`. Ensure that they are all owned by the new oragono role user: `sudo chown oragono:oragono /home/oragono/*`. Ensure that the configuration file logs to stderr.
+1. Copy the executable binary `oragono`, the config file `ircd.yaml`, the database `ircd.db`, and the self-signed TLS certificate (`fullchain.pem` and `privkey.pem`) to `/home/oragono`. (If you don't have an `ircd.db`, it will be auto-created as `/home/oragono/ircd.db` on first launch.) Ensure that they are all owned by the new oragono role user: `sudo chown oragono:oragono /home/oragono/*`. Ensure that the configuration file logs to stderr.
 1. Install our example [oragono.service](https://github.com/oragono/oragono/blob/master/distrib/systemd/oragono.service) file to `/etc/systemd/system/oragono.service`.
 1. Enable and start the new service with the following commands:
     1. `systemctl daemon-reload`