gotosocial/docs/installation_guide/docker.md

# Docker

The official GoToSocial Docker images are provided through [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial).

Docker images are currently available for the following OS + architecture combinations:

Linux

- 386
- amd64
- arm6
- arm7
- arm64v8

FreeBSD

- amd64

Before following this guide, you should read the [system requirements](./index.md).

This guide assumes that you're using Linux.

## Run with Docker Compose

You can run GoToSocial using any orchestration system that can manage Docker containers ([Kubernetes](https://kubernetes.io/), [Nomad](https://www.nomadproject.io/), etc).

For simplicity's sake, this guide will lead you through the installation with [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose), using SQLite as your database.

### Create a Working Dir

You need a working directory in which your docker-compose file will be located, and a directory for GoToSocial to store data in, so create these directories with the following command:

```bash
mkdir -p ~/gotosocial/data
```

Now change to the working directory you created:

```bash
cd ~/gotosocial
```

### Get the latest docker-compose.yaml

Use `wget` to download the latest [docker-compose.yaml](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/main/example/docker-compose/docker-compose.yaml) example, which we'll customize for our needs:

```bash
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/main/example/docker-compose/docker-compose.yaml
```

### Edit the docker-compose.yaml

Because GoToSocial can be configured using [Environment Variables](../configuration/index.md#environment-variables), we can skip mounting a config.yaml file into the container, to make our configuration simpler. We just need to edit the docker-compose.yaml file to change a few things.

First open the docker-compose.yaml file in your editor of choice. For example:

```bash
nano docker-compose.yaml
```

#### Version

First, you should update the GoToSocial version number to the latest stable release.

The list of releases can be found [right here](https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/releases), with the newest release at the top.

Replace `latest` in the docker-compose.yaml with the number of the release (without the leading `v` or trailing version name). So for example if you want to run [v0.3.1 Sleepy Sloth](https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/releases/tag/v0.3.1) you should replace:

```text
image: superseriousbusiness/gotosocial:latest
```

with:

```text
image: superseriousbusiness/gotosocial:0.3.1
```

#### Host

Change the `GTS_HOST` environment variable to the domain you are running GoToSocial on.

#### User (optional / probably not necessary)

By default, Dockerized GoToSocial runs with Linux user/group `1000:1000`, which is fine in most cases. If you want to run as a different user/group, you should change the `user` field in the docker-compose.yaml accordingly.

For example, let's say you created the `~/gotosocial/data` directory for a user with id `1001`, and group id `1001`. If you now try to run GoToSocial without changing the `user` field, it will get a permissions error trying to open its database file in the directory. In this case, you would have to change the `user` field of the docker compose file to `1001:1001`.

#### LetsEncrypt (optional)

If you want to use [LetsEncrypt](../configuration/letsencrypt.md) for ssl certificates (https), you should also:

1. Change the value of `GTS_LETSENCRYPT_ENABLED` to `"true"`.
2. Remove the `#` before `- "80:80"` in the `ports` section.
3. (Optional) Set `GTS_LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL_ADDRESS` to a valid email address to receive certificate expiry warnings etc.

### Start GoToSocial

With those small changes out of the way, you can now start GoToSocial with the following command:

```shell
docker-compose up -d
```

After running this command, you should get an output like:

```text
Creating network "gotosocial_gotosocial" with the default driver
Creating gotosocial ... done
```

If you want to follow the logs of GoToSocial, you can use:

```bash
docker logs -f gotosocial
```

If everything is OK, you should see something similar to the following:

```text
time=2022-04-19T09:48:35Z level=info msg=connected to SQLITE database
time=2022-04-19T09:48:35Z level=info msg=MIGRATED DATABASE TO group #1 (20211113114307, 20220214175650, 20220305130328, 20220315160814) func=doMigration
time=2022-04-19T09:48:36Z level=info msg=instance account example.org CREATED with id 01EXX0TJ9PPPXF2C4N2MMMVK50
time=2022-04-19T09:48:36Z level=info msg=created instance instance example.org with id 01PQT31C7BZJ1Q2Z4BMEV90ZCV
time=2022-04-19T09:48:36Z level=info msg=media manager cron logger: start[]
time=2022-04-19T09:48:36Z level=info msg=media manager cron logger: schedule[now 2022-04-19 09:48:36.096127852 +0000 UTC entry 1 next 2022-04-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC]
time=2022-04-19T09:48:36Z level=info msg=started media manager remote cache cleanup job: will run next at 2022-04-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
time=2022-04-19T09:48:36Z level=info msg=listening on 0.0.0.0:8080
```

### Create your first User

Now that GoToSocial is running, you can execute commands inside the running container to create, confirm, and promote your admin user.

First create a user (replace the username, email, and password with appropriate values):

```bash
docker exec -it gotosocial /gotosocial/gotosocial admin account create --username some_username --email someone@example.org --password 'some_very_good_password'
```

Now confirm the user, replacing username with the value you used in the command above.

```bash
docker exec -it gotosocial /gotosocial/gotosocial admin account confirm --username some_username
```

Now promote the user you just created to admin privileges:

```bash
docker exec -it gotosocial /gotosocial/gotosocial admin account promote --username some_username
```

When running these commands, you'll get a bit of output like the following:

```text
time=2022-04-19T09:53:29Z level=info msg=connected to SQLITE database
time=2022-04-19T09:53:29Z level=info msg=there are no new migrations to run func=doMigration
time=2022-04-19T09:53:29Z level=info msg=closing db connection
```

This is normal and indicates that the commands ran as expected.

### Done

GoToSocial should now be running on your machine! To verify this, open your browser and go to `http://localhost:443`. You should see the GoToSocial landing page. Well done!

## (Optional) Reverse Proxy

If you want to run other webservers on port 443, or want to add an additional layer of security you might want to add [NGINX](https://nginx.org), [Traefik](https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/), or [Apache httpd](https://httpd.apache.org/) into your docker-compose to use as a reverse proxy.