Single-Node installation of a Seafile Server¶

Alright, let's dive in. This article will guide you through the process of installing a Seafile server with a Caddy web server. By the end of this article, your new Seafile server will be accessible via HTTPS with your custom domain. To begin, open a root shell on your server.

Install basic tools¶

The following command installs basic tools that are used in the following manual. Usually all these tools are already installed on your linux server.

apt update && \
apt -y install curl pwgen tree wget tar nano

Install Docker and Docker Compose Plugin¶

At get.docker.com, you'll find a script designed for the easy and convenient installation of the Docker Engine. While the script isn't recommended for production environments, it has shown no issues in our observations. You can effortlessly install Docker using this single command:

curl -fsSL get.docker.com | bash

Alternatively, you can opt to follow Docker's official installation instructions

Install Seafile Server¶

This installation assumes that all Seafile components are installed under /opt. We highly recommended to keep this folder structure. All articles in the manual assume Seafile's installation in this directory.

1. Create basic structure¶

Simply copy and paste the following command into your command line to execute. This code will download the latest yml files from repository seafile-release.

mkdir /opt/seafile-compose && \
cd /opt/seafile-compose && \
wget -c https://github.com/datamate-rethink-it/seafile-release/releases/latest/download/seafile-compose.tar.gz \
-O - | tar -xz -C /opt/seafile-compose && \
cp -n .env-release .env

To get an overview of the downloaded files, use the tree command.

tree -a /opt/seafile-compose

The expected output should appear as follows.

# this should be the output of the tree command...
/opt/seafile-compose
├── caddy.yml
├── collabora.yml
├── .env
├── .env-release
├── .galera.yml
├── onlyoffice.yml
├── restic.yml
├── seafile-pe-cluster-backend.yml
├── seafile-pe-cluster-frontend.yml
├── seafile-pe.yml
├── seafile_storage_classes.json

2. Create a directory for Elasticsearch¶

Elastisearch does not run as root user and therefore it is necessary to create the directory for the volume mount upfront. Otherwise elasticsearch has no permission to write into this directory.

mkdir -p /opt/seafile-elasticsearch/data && \
chown -R 1000 /opt/seafile-elasticsearch

3. Generate some secrets¶

Seafile is configured with the hidden .env file (=enviroment configuration file) that is stored in the folder /opt/seafile-compose.

We utilize pwgen to create secure passwords for your admin account, the database root password and other stuff. The following commands will generate such passwords and include them in the .env' file.

sed -i "s/^SEAFILE_ADMIN_PASSWORD=.*/SEAFILE_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(pwgen 40 1)/" .env
sed -i "s/^SEAFILE_MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=.*/SEAFILE_MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=$(pwgen 40 1)/" .env
sed -i "s/^SEAHUB__SECRET_KEY=.*/SEAHUB__SECRET_KEY=$(pwgen 40 1)/" .env
sed -i "s/^SEAFILE__notification__jwt_private_key=.*/SEAFILE__notification__jwt_private_key=$(pwgen 40 1)/" .env

Alternatively, you can manually add your own passwords.

4. Complete settings in the .env file¶

Open the .env file with the editor of your choice, like nano or vim.

nano /opt/seafile-compose/.env

Continue setting up your Seafile server by adjusting only three more variables. These are:

• TIME_ZONE
• SEAFILE_SERVER_HOSTNAME
• SEAFILE_ADMIN_EMAIL

# components to be used
COMPOSE_FILE='caddy.yml,seafile-pe.yml' # (1)!
COMPOSE_PATH_SEPARATOR=','

# system settings
TIME_ZONE='Europe/Berlin' # (2)!

# seafile server base url
SEAFILE_SERVER_HOSTNAME='seafile.example.com' # (3)!

# initial web admin
SEAFILE_ADMIN_EMAIL='me@example.com'
SEAFILE_ADMIN_PASSWORD='topsecret'

# database
SEAFILE_MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=

# seahub secret key
SEAHUB__SECRET_KEY=

# jwt private key for seafile notification server
SEAFILE__notification__jwt_private_key=

1. COMPOSE_FILE is a comma separated list without spaces. This list defines which components should run on this server. Leave caddy.yml and seatable-server.yml at the beginning. You will add more components at a later time.
2. Get a list of timezones from Wikipedia.
3. Select your domain or subdomain that points to your Server (without https://). You have to set an A-Record or CNAME pointing to your IP.
   If you don't have an URL and want to use an IP, then use the free service nip.io and add your-ip.nip.io (e.g. 5.35.28.112.nip.io).

5. Get a license¶

We assume that you have a license and that you save it to /opt/seafile-compose/seafile-license.txt.

If you don't have a license, just create an empty license file to with the following command to use seafile with up to three users for free.

touch /opt/seafile-compose/seafile-license.txt

6. Fire up the server¶

Now it is time to run the following command to download and initiate the docker images for the initial setup. This process will require some time.

docker compose up -d

If the process completed successfully, you can now open your web browser and access Seafile using the URL you specified in your .env file. Sign in using the credentials you provided in the same file.

Congratulations! You've completed the basic setup of your Seafile Server.

Next steps: use it or configure it¶

Now it's your turn! You can dive right into Seafile: upload files, add users, utilize the API, and explore all its features.

Or, if you prefer, you can start by configuring your Seafile Server. In the next section, we'll guide you through configuring your Seafile Server using the .env file.