paperless-ngx Docker Compose files

Docker Compose files to spin up an instance of paperless-ngx.

How to run

Add a COMPOSE_ENV file and save its location as a shell variable along with the location where this repo lives, here for example /opt/containers/paperless_ngx plus all other variables. At env/fqdn_context.env.example you'll find an example environment file.

When everything's ready start paperless-ngx with Docker Compose, otherwise head down to Initial setup first.

Environment

We're assuming that the upstream Git repo github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx is checked out locally. In our example we're assuming it's living at /opt/git/github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx/tags/latest. The repo contains multiple Docker Compose files in docker/compose dir, we'll be using one of them as our baseline.

export UPSTREAM_REPO_DIR='/opt/git/github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx/tags/latest'
export UPSTREAM_COMPOSE_FILE="${UPSTREAM_REPO_DIR%/}"'/docker/compose/docker-compose.postgres-tika.yml'
export COMPOSE_CTX='ux_vilnius'
export COMPOSE_PROJECT='paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"
export COMPOSE_PROJECT_DIR='/opt/containers/paperless_ngx'
export COMPOSE_OVERRIDE="${COMPOSE_PROJECT_DIR%/}"'/compose.override.yaml'
export COMPOSE_COMMON_SETTINGS="${COMPOSE_PROJECT_DIR%/}"'/common-settings.yaml'
export COMPOSE_ENV=<add accordingly>
export PAPERLESS_NGX_VERSION='2.14.7'

Prep upstream Git repo

git -C "${UPSTREAM_REPO_DIR}" reset --hard origin
git -C "${UPSTREAM_REPO_DIR}" checkout dev
git -C "${UPSTREAM_REPO_DIR}" pull
git -C "${UPSTREAM_REPO_DIR}" checkout 'v'"${PAPERLESS_NGX_VERSION}"

Context

On your deployment machine create the necessary Docker context to connect to and control the Docker daemon on whatever target host you'll be using, for example:

docker context create fully.qualified.domain.name --docker 'host=ssh://root@fully.qualified.domain.name'

Pull

Pull images from Docker Hub verbatim.

docker compose --project-name "${COMPOSE_PROJECT}" --file "${UPSTREAM_COMPOSE_FILE}" --file "${COMPOSE_OVERRIDE}" --env-file "${COMPOSE_ENV}" pull

Copy to target

Copy images to target Docker host, that is assuming you deploy to a machine that itself has no network route to reach Docker Hub or your private registry of choice. Copying in its simplest form involves a local docker save and a remote docker load. Consider the helper mini-project quico.space/Quico/copy-docker where copy-docker.sh allows the following workflow:

while IFS= read -u 10 -r image; do
    copy-docker "${image}" fully.qualified.domain.name
done 10< <(docker compose --project-name "${COMPOSE_PROJECT}" --file "${UPSTREAM_COMPOSE_FILE}" --file "${COMPOSE_OVERRIDE}" --env-file "${COMPOSE_ENV}" config | grep -Pi -- 'image:' | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq)

Start

docker --context 'fully.qualified.domain.name' compose --project-name "${COMPOSE_PROJECT}" --file "${UPSTREAM_COMPOSE_FILE}" --file "${COMPOSE_OVERRIDE}" --env-file "${COMPOSE_ENV}" up --detach

Clean up

docker --context 'fully.qualified.domain.name' system prune -af
docker system prune -af

Initial setup

We're assuming you run Docker Compose workloads with ZFS-based bind mounts. ZFS management, creating a zpool and setting adequate properties for its datasets is out of scope of this document.

Datasets

Create ZFS datasets and set permissions as needed.

• Parent dateset

  export "$(grep -Pi -- '^CONTEXT=' "${COMPOSE_ENV}")"
  zfs create -o canmount=off zpool/data/opt
  zfs create -o mountpoint=/opt/docker-data zpool/data/opt/docker-data
  

• Container-specific datasets

  zfs create -p 'zpool/data/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/broker/data'
  zfs create -p 'zpool/data/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/db/data'
  zfs create -p 'zpool/data/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/webserver/consume'
  zfs create -p 'zpool/data/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/webserver/data'
  zfs create -p 'zpool/data/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/webserver/export'
  zfs create -p 'zpool/data/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/webserver/media'
  

• Change ownership

  chown -R 999:999 '/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/'{'broker','db'}'/'*
  chown -R 1000:1000 '/opt/docker-data/paperless_ngx-'"${COMPOSE_CTX}"'/webserver/'*
  

Additional files

No additional files are needed to get started.

Head back up to How to run.

Development

Conventional commits

This project uses Conventional Commits for its commit messages.

Commit types

Commit types besides fix and feat are:

• refactor: Keeping functionality while streamlining or otherwise improving function flow
• docs: Documentation for project or components

Commit scopes

The following scopes are known for this project. A Conventional Commits commit message may optionally use one of the following scopes or none:

• paperless_ngx: A change to how the paperless_ngx service component works
• build: Build-related changes such as Dockerfile fixes and features.
• mount: Volume or bind mount-related changes.
• net: Networking, IP addressing, routing changes
• meta: Affects the project's repo layout, file names etc.