gotosocial/docs/getting_started/installation/container.md

# Container

This guide walks you through getting GoToSocial up and running using the official container images we publish. In this case we'll be using the Docker runtime directly through [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose) together with SQLite as the database.

You can also run GoToSocial using a container orchestration system such as [Kubernetes](https://kubernetes.io/) or [Nomad](https://www.nomadproject.io/), but that is beyond the scope of this guide.

## Create a Working Directory

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

If desired, update the GoToSocial Docker image tag to the version of GtS you want to use:

* `latest`: the default. This points to the latest stable release of GoToSocial.
* `snapshot`: points to whatever code is currently on the main branch. Not guaranteed to be stable, and may often be broken. Use with caution.
* `vX.Y.Z`: release tag. This points to a specific, stable, release of GoToSocial.

!!! tip
    Both the `latest` and `snapshot` tags are moving tags, whereas the `vX.Y.Z` tags are immutable. The result of pulling a moving tag might change from day to day. `latest` on one system might not be the same `latest` on a different system. It's recommended to use the `vX.Y.Z` tags instead so you always know exactly which version of GoToSocial you're running. The list of releases can be found [right here](https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/releases), with the newest release at the top.

### Host

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

### Server Timezone (optional but recommended)

To ensure that your GoToSocial server displays the correct time on posts and in logs, you can set the timezone of the server by editing the `TZ` environment variable.

1. Remove the `#` before `TZ: UTC` in the environment section.
2. Change the `UTC` part to your timezone identifier. For a list of these identifiers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones.

For example, if you are running your server in Minsk, you would set `TZ: Europe/Minsk`, Japan would be `TZ: Japan`, Dubai would be `TZ: Asia/Dubai`, etc.

If you don't set this, the default `UTC` will be used.

### 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/tls.md) for TLS 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.

!!! info "Optional configuration"
    
    There are many other configuration options documented in the config.yaml file, which you can use to further customize the behavior of your GoToSocial instance. These use sensible defaults where possible, so you don't necessarily need to make any changes to them right now, but here are a few you may be interested in:
    
    - `GTS_INSTANCE_LANGUAGES`: array of [BCP47 language tags](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF_language_tag) which determines the preferred languages of your instance.
    - `GTS_MEDIA_REMOTE_CACHE_DAYS`: number of days to keep remote media cached in storage.
    - `GTS_SMTP_*`: settings to allow your GoToSocial instance to connect to an email server and send notification emails.

    If you decide to set/change any of these variables later on, be sure to restart your GoToSocial instance after making the changes.
    

!!! tip
    
    For help translating variable names from the config.yaml file to environment variables, refer to the [configuration section](../../configuration/index.md#environment-variables).

### Wazero Compilation Cache (optional)

On startup, GoToSocial compiles embedded WebAssembly `ffmpeg` and `ffprobe` binaries into [Wazero](https://wazero.io/)-compatible modules, which are used for media processing without requiring any external dependencies.

To speed up startup time of GoToSocial, you can cache the compiled modules between restarts so that GoToSocial doesn't have to compile them on every startup from scratch.

If you'd like to do this in your Docker container, first create a `.cache` directory in your working folder to store the modules:

```bash
mkdir -p ~/gotosocial/.cache
```

Then, uncomment the second volume in the docker-compose.yaml file by removing the leading `#` symbol, so that instead of

```yaml
#- ~/gotosocial/.cache:/gotosocial/.cache
```

it reads

```yaml
- ~/gotosocial/.cache:/gotosocial/.cache
```

This will instruct Docker to mount the `~/gotosocial/.cache` directory at `/gotosocial/.cache` inside the Docker container.

## 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 should create at least a user for yourself. How to do so is documented in our [Creating users](../user_creation.md) guide.

### Done

GoToSocial should now be running on your machine! To verify this, open your browser navigate to whatever you set as your `GTS_HOST` value. 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 use a [reverse proxy](../reverse_proxy/index.md). We have guides available for a couple of popular open source options and will gladly take pull requests to add more.