joplin/packages/server

Installing

Configuration

First copy .env-sample to .env and edit the values in there:

• APP_BASE_URL: This is the base public URL where the service will be running. For example, if you want it to run from https://example.com/joplin, this is what you should set the URL to. The base URL can include the port.
• APP_PORT: The local port on which the Docker container will listen. You would typically map this port to 443 (TLS) with a reverse proxy.

Running the server

To start the server with default configuration, run:

docker run --env-file .env -p 22300:22300 joplin/server:latest

This will start the server, which will listen on port 22300 on localhost. By default it will use SQLite, which allows you to test the app without setting up a database. To run it for production though, you'll want to connect the container to a database, as described below.

Setup the database

You can setup the container to either use an existing PostgreSQL server, or connect it to a new one using docker-compose

Using an existing PostgreSQL server

To use an existing PostgresSQL server, set the following environment variables in the .env file:

DB_CLIENT=pg
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=joplin
POSTGRES_DATABASE=joplin
POSTGRES_USER=joplin
POSTGRES_PORT=5432
POSTGRES_HOST=localhost

Make sure that the provided database and user exist as the server will not create them.

Using docker-compose

A sample docker-compose file is available to show how to use Docker to install both the database and server and connect them:

Setup reverse proxy

Once Joplin Server is running, you will then need to expose it to the internet by setting up a reverse proxy, and that will depend on how your server is currently configured, and whether you already have Nginx or Apache running:

• Apache Reverse Proxy
• Nginx Reverse Proxy

Setup the website

Once the server is exposed to the internet, you can open the admin UI and get it ready for synchronisation. For the following instructions, we'll assume that the Joplin server is running on https://example.com/joplin.

Secure the admin user

By default, the instance will be setup with an admin user with email admin@localhost and password admin and you should change this. To do so, open https://example.com/joplin/login and login as admin. Then go to the Profile section and change the admin password.

Create a user for sync

While the admin user can be used for synchronisation, it is recommended to create a separate non-admin user for it. To do so, navigate to the Users page - from there you can create a new user. Once this is done, you can use the email and password you specified to sync this user account with your Joplin clients.

Checking the logs

Checking the log can be done the standard Docker way:

# With Docker:
docker logs --follow CONTAINER

# With docker-compose:
docker-compose --file docker-compose.server.yml logs

Setup for development

Setup up the database

SQLite

By default the server supports SQLite for development, so nothing needs to be setup.

PostgreSQL

To use Postgres, from the monorepo root, run docker-compose --file docker-compose.server-dev.yml up, which will start the PostgreSQL database.

Starting the server

From packages/server, run npm run start-dev

Changelog

View the changelog