Docker Installation

Make sure you have both docker and docker-compose(>=1.24.0) installed. On Ubuntu, just run apt install docker-compose docker.io. Next,

# create a folder for the lemmy files. the location doesnt matter, you can put this anywhere you want
mkdir /lemmy
cd /lemmy

# download default config files
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/main/docker/prod/docker-compose.yml
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/main/docker/lemmy.hjson
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/main/docker/iframely.config.local.js

# Set correct permissions for pictrs folder
mkdir -p volumes/pictrs
sudo chown -R 991:991 volumes/pictrs

Open up your docker-compose.yml, and make sure LEMMY_EXTERNAL_HOST for lemmy-ui is set to your correct host.

- LEMMY_INTERNAL_HOST=lemmy:8536
- LEMMY_EXTERNAL_HOST=your-domain.com
- LEMMY_HTTPS=false

If you'd like a different database password, you should also change it in the docker-compose.yml before your first run.

After this, have a look at the config file named lemmy.hjson, and adjust it, in particular the hostname, and possibly the db password. Then run:

docker-compose up -d

You can access the lemmy-ui at http://localhost:1235

To make Lemmy available outside the server, you need to setup a reverse proxy, like Nginx. A sample nginx config, could be setup with:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/main/ansible/templates/nginx.conf
# Replace the {{ vars }}
# The default lemmy_port is 8536
# The default lemmy_ui_port is 1235
sudo mv nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/lemmy.conf

You will also need to setup TLS, for example with Let's Encrypt. After this you need to restart Nginx to reload the config.

Updating

To update to the newest version, you can manually change the version in docker-compose.yml. Alternatively, fetch the latest version from our git repo:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/main/docker/prod/docker-compose.yml
docker-compose up -d