OpenProject installation with Docker Compose

This repository contains the installation method for OpenProject using Docker Compose.

Note

Looking for the Kubernetes installation method? Please use the OpenProject helm chart to install OpenProject on kubernetes.

Quick start

First, you must clone the openproject-deploy repository:

git clone https://github.com/opf/openproject-deploy --depth=1 --branch=stable/15 openproject

Copy the example .env file and edit any values you want to change:

cp .env.example .env
vim .env

If you are using the default value of OPDATA that is used in the .env.example you need to make sure that the folder exist, and you have the right permissions:

sudo mkdir -p /var/openproject/assets
sudo chown 1000:1000 -R /var/openproject/assets

Next you start up the containers in the background while making sure to pull the latest versions of all used images.

OPENPROJECT_HTTPS=false docker compose up -d --build --pull always

After a while, OpenProject should be up and running on http://localhost:8080. The default username and password is login: admin, and password: admin. The OPENPROJECT_HTTPS=false environment variable explicitly disables HTTPS mode for the first startup. Without this, OpenProject assumes it's running behind HTTPS in production by default. We do strongly recommend you use OpenProject behind a TLS terminated proxy for production purposes and remove this flag before actually starting to use it.

Customization

The docker-compose.yml file present in the repository can be adjusted to your convenience. But note that with each pull, it will be overwritten. Best practice is to use the file docker-compose.override.yml for that case. For instance you could mount specific configuration files, override environment variables, or switch off services you don't need.

Please refer to the official Docker Compose documentation for more details.

Troubleshooting

pull access denied for openproject/proxy, repository does not exist or may require 'docker login': denied: requested access to the resource is denied

If you encounter this after docker compose up this is merely a warning which can be ignored.

If this happens during docker compose pull this is simply a warning as well. But it will result in the command's exit code to be a failure even though all images are pulled. To prevent this you can add the --ignore-buildable option, running docker compose pull --ignore-buildable.

HTTPS/SSL

By default OpenProject starts with the HTTPS option enabled, but it does not handle SSL termination itself. This is usually done separately via a reverse proxy setup. Without this you will run into an ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR when accessing OpenProject.

See below how to disable HTTPS.

Be aware that if you want to use the integrated Caddy proxy as a proxy with outbound connections, you need to rewrite the Caddyfile. In the default state, it is configured to forward the X-Forwarded-* headers from the reverse proxy in front of it and not setting them itself. This is considered a security flaw and should instead be solved by configuring trusted_proxies inside the Caddyfile. For more information read the Caddy documentation.

PORT

By default the port is bound to 0.0.0.0 means access to OpenProject will be public. See below how to change that.

Image configuration

OpenProject publishes slim containers that you should be using for this compose setup. Please see https://www.openproject.org/docs/installation-and-operations/installation/docker/#available-containers for more information on the containers and versions we push.

Configuration

Environment variables can be added to docker-compose.yml under x-op-app -> environment to change OpenProject's configuration. Some are already defined and can be changed via the environment.

You can pass those variables directly when starting the stack as follows.

VARIABLE=value docker-compose up -d

You can also put those variables into an .env file in your current working directory, and Docker Compose will pick it up automatically. See .env.example for details.

HTTPS

You can disable OpenProject's HTTPS option via:

OPENPROJECT_HTTPS=false

PORT

If you want to specify a different port, you can do so with:

PORT=4000

If you don't want OpenProject to bind to 0.0.0.0 you can bind it to localhost only like this:

PORT=127.0.0.1:8080

TAG

If you want to specify a custom tag for the OpenProject docker image, you can do so with:

TAG=my-docker-tag

BIM edition

In order to install or change to BIM inside a Docker environment, please navigate to the Docker Installation for OpenProject BIM paragraph at the BIM edition documentation.

Upgrade

Retrieve any changes from the openproject-deploy repository:

git pull origin stable/15

Build the control plane:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.control.yml build

Take a backup of your existing postgresql data and openproject assets:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.control.yml run backup

Run the upgrade:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.control.yml run upgrade

Relaunch the containers, ensure you are pulling to use the latest version of the Docker images:

docker compose up -d --build --pull always

Backup

Switch off your current installation:

docker-compose down

Build the control scripts:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.control.yml build

Take a backup of your existing PostgreSQL data and OpenProject assets:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.control.yml run backup

Restart your OpenProject installation

docker-compose up -d

Uninstall

If you want to stop the containers without removing them directly:

docker-compose stop

You can remove the container stack with:

docker-compose down

Note

This will not remove your data which is persisted in named volumes, likely called compose_opdata (for attachments) and compose_pgdata (for the database). The exact name depends on the name of the directory where your docker-compose.yml and/or you docker-compose.override.yml files are stored (compose in this case).

If you want to start from scratch and remove the existing data you will have to remove these volumes via docker volume rm compose_opdata compose_pgdata.

Troubleshooting

You can look at the logs with:

docker-compose logs -n 1000

For the complete documentation, please refer to https://docs.openproject.org/installation-and-operations/.

Network issues

If you're running into weird network issues and timeouts such as the one described in OP#42802, you might have success in remove the two separate frontend and backend networks. This might be connected to using podman for orchestration, although we haven't been able to confirm this.

SMTP setup fails: Network is unreachable.

Make sure your container has DNS resolution to access external SMTP server when set up as described in OP#44515.

worker:
  dns:
    - "Your DNS IP" # OR add a public DNS resolver like 8.8.8.8