Setting up Immich

Setup
Docker install 1st

Setup

Set up the server

Step 1 - Download the required files

Create a directory of your choice (e.g. ./immich-app) to hold the docker-compose.yml and .env files.

Move to the directory you created

mkdir ./immich-app
cd ./immich-app

Download docker-compose.yml and example.env by running the following commands:

Get docker-compose.yml file

wget -O docker-compose.yml https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml

Get .env file

wget -O .env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env

You can alternatively download these two files from your browser and move them to the directory that you created, in which case ensure that you rename example.env to .env.

Step 2 - Populate the .env file with custom values

Default environmental variable content

# You can find documentation for all the supported env variables at https://docs.immich.app/install/environment-variables

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./library

# The location where your database files are stored. Network shares are not supported for the database
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres

# To set a timezone, uncomment the next line and change Etc/UTC to a TZ identifier from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones#List
# TZ=Etc/UTC

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v2.1.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=v2

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
# Please use only the characters `A-Za-z0-9`, without special characters or spaces
DB_PASSWORD=postgres

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

Populate UPLOAD_LOCATION with your preferred location for storing backup assets. It should be a new directory on the server with enough free space.
Consider changing DB_PASSWORD to a custom value. Postgres is not publicly exposed, so this password is only used for local authentication. To avoid issues with Docker parsing this value, it is best to use only the characters A-Za-z0-9. pwgen is a handy utility for this.
Set your timezone by uncommenting the TZ= line.
Populate custom database information if necessary.

Step 3 - Start the containers

From the directory you created in Step 1 (which should now contain your customized docker-compose.yml and .env files), run the following command to start Immich as a background service:

Start the containers

docker compose up -d

All of this documentation can also be found on https://docs.immich.app/overview/quick-start/

Docker install 1st

Before you install Docker Engine for the first time on a new host machine, you need to set up the Docker apt repository. Afterward, you can install and update Docker from the repository.

Set up Docker's apt repository.

# Add Docker's official GPG key:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

# Add the repository to Apt sources:
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}")
Components: stable
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
EOF

sudo apt update

Install the Docker packages.

To install the latest version, run:
```
 sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
```
Note

The Docker service starts automatically after installation. To verify that Docker is running, use:
```
 sudo systemctl status docker
```
Some systems may have this behavior disabled and will require a manual start:
```
 sudo systemctl start docker
```
Verify that the installation is successful by running the hello-world image:
```
 sudo docker run hello-world
```