seafile-admin-docs/manual/setup/setup_ce_by_docker.md

Installation of Seafile Server Community Edition with Docker

Getting started

The following assumptions and conventions are used in the rest of this document:

• /opt/seafile-data is the directory of Seafile. If you decide to put Seafile in a different directory — which you can — adjust all paths accordingly.
• Seafile uses two Docker volumes for persisting data generated in its database and Seafile Docker container. The volumes' host paths are /opt/seafile-mysql and /opt/seafile-data, respectively. It is not recommended to change these paths. If you do, account for it when following these instructions.
• All configuration and log files for Seafile and the webserver Nginx are stored in the volume of the Seafile container.

Install docker

Use the official installation guide for your OS to install Docker.

Download and modify .env

From Seafile Docker 12.0, we use .env, seafile-server.yml and caddy.yml files for configuration.

NOTE: Different versions of Seafile have different compose files.

mkdir /opt/seafile
cd /opt/seafile

# Seafile CE 12.0
wget -O .env https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/docker/ce/env
wget https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/docker/ce/seafile-server.yml
wget https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/docker/ce/caddy.yml

nano .env

The following fields merit particular attention:

• SEAFILE_VOLUME: The volume directory of Seafile data, default is /opt/seafile-data
• SEAFILE_MYSQL_VOLUME: The volume directory of MySQL data, default is /opt/seafile-mysql/db
• SEAFILE_CADDY_VOLUME: The volume directory of Caddy data used to store certificates obtained from Let's Encrypt's, default is /opt/seafile-caddy
• INIT_SEAFILE_MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: The user root password of MySQL
• SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_USER: The user of MySQL (database - user can be found in conf/seafile.conf)
• SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_PASSWORD: The user seafile password of MySQL
• JWT: JWT_PRIVATE_KEY, A random string with a length of no less than 32 characters, generate example: pwgen -s 40 1
• SEAFILE_SERVER_HOSTNAME: Seafile server hostname or domain
• SEAFILE_SERVER_PROTOCOL: Seafile server protocol (http or https)
• TIME_ZONE: Time zone (default UTC)
• INIT_SEAFILE_ADMIN_EMAIL: Admin username
• INIT_SEAFILE_ADMIN_PASSWORD: Admin password

Start Seafile server

Start Seafile server with the following command

# if `.env` file is in current directory:
docker compose up -d

# if `.env` file is elsewhere:
docker compose -f /path/to/.env up -d

Wait for a few minutes for the first time initialization, then visit http://seafile.example.com to open Seafile Web UI.

Seafile directory structure

/opt/seafile-data

Placeholder spot for shared volumes. You may elect to store certain persistent information outside of a container, in our case we keep various log files and upload directory outside. This allows you to rebuild containers easily without losing important information.

• /opt/seafile-data/seafile: This is the directory for seafile server configuration and data.
  • /opt/seafile-data/seafile/logs: This is the directory that would contain the log files of seafile server processes. For example, you can find seaf-server logs in /opt/seafile-data/seafile/logs/seafile.log.
• /opt/seafile-data/logs: This is the directory for operating system and Nginx logs.
  • /opt/seafile-data/logs/var-log: This is the directory that would be mounted as /var/log inside the container. For example, you can find the nginx logs in /opt/seafile-data/logs/var-log/nginx/.

Find logs

To monitor container logs (from outside of the container), please use the following commands:

# if the `.env` file is in current directory:
docker compose logs --follow
# if the `.env` file is elsewhere:
docker compose -f /path/to/.env logs --follow

# you can also specify container name:
docker compose logs seafile --follow
# or, if the `.env` file is elsewhere:
docker compose -f /path/to/.env logs seafile --follow

The Seafile logs are under /shared/logs/seafile in the docker, or /opt/seafile-data/logs/seafile in the server that run the docker.

The system logs are under /shared/logs/var-log, or /opt/seafile-data/logs/var-log in the server that run the docker.

To monitor all Seafile logs simultaneously (from outside of the container), run

sudo tail -f $(find /opt/seafile-data/ -type f -name *.log 2>/dev/null)

More configuration options

Modify Seafile server configurations

The config files are under /opt/seafile-data/seafile/conf. You can modify the configurations according to Seafile manual

After modification, you need to restart the container:

docker compose restart

Add a new admin

Ensure the container is running, then enter this command:

docker exec -it seafile /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest/reset-admin.sh

Enter the username and password according to the prompts. You now have a new admin account.

Backup and recovery

Follow the instructions in Backup and restore for Seafile Docker

Garbage collection

When files are deleted, the blocks comprising those files are not immediately removed as there may be other files that reference those blocks (due to the magic of deduplication). To remove them, Seafile requires a 'garbage collection' process to be run, which detects which blocks no longer used and purges them. (NOTE: for technical reasons, the GC process does not guarantee that every single orphan block will be deleted.)

The required scripts can be found in the /scripts folder of the docker container. To perform garbage collection, simply run docker exec seafile /scripts/gc.sh. For the community edition, this process will stop the seafile server, but it is a relatively quick process and the seafile server will start automatically once the process has finished. The Professional supports an online garbage collection.

FAQ

You can run docker commands like docker exec to find errors

docker exec -it seafile /bin/bash