Based on the official Neo4j Docker image, built on Alpine to minimize image size.
Neo4j is a highly scalable, robust, native graph database. It is used in mission-critical apps by thousands of leading startups, enterprises, and governments around the world. You can learn more here.
NOTE: Docker does not run natively on OSX or Windows. If you are running on one of these platforms you will need to run Docker inside a VM. Please read the Docker documentation for your platform (OSX, Windows). The instructions below include variants to cope with the difference between platforms where necessary; they assume that on OSX you have a shell set up as per the instructions linked above and that you have a Docker machine VM called default.
The image exposes two ports (7474 and 7473) for HTTP and HTTPS access to the Neo4j API and a volume (/data) to allow the database to be persisted outside its container.
docker run \
--detach \
--publish=7474:7474 \
--volume=$HOME/neo4j-data:/data \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j
Point your browser at http://localhost:7474 on Linux or http://$(docker-machine ip default):7474 on OSX.
NOTE: All the volumes in this guide are stored under $HOME in order to work on OSX where $HOME is automatically mounted into the machine VM. On Linux the volumes can be stored anywhere.
NOTE: By default Neo4j requires authentication. You have to login with neo4j/neo4j at the first connection and set a new password.
The Neo4j comes in two editions: Community and Enterprise.
Neo4j Enterprise Edition is designed for commercial deployments where scale and availability are important. Use of Neo4j Enterprise Edition requires a commercial license agreement with Neo Technology. Please see Neo4j licensing for details.
Tags are available for both editions. Version-specific Enterprise tags have an -enterprise suffix (like neo4j/neo4j:2.3.0-enterprise), Community tags have no suffix (like neo4j/neo4j:2.3.0). The latest Enterprise release is available as neo4j/neo4j:enterprise.
Neo4j may use a large number of file descriptors if many indexes are in use or there is a large number of simultaneous database connections.
Docker controls the number of open file descriptors in a container; the limit depends on the configuration of your system. We recommend a limit of at least 40000 for running Neo4j.
To check the limit on your system, run this command:
docker run thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j \
bash -c 'echo Soft limit: $(ulimit -Sn); echo Hard limit: $(ulimit -Hn)'
To override the default configuration for a single container, use the --ulimit option like this:
docker run \
--detach \
--publish=7474:7474 \
--volume=$HOME/neo4j/data:/data \
--ulimit=nofile=40000:40000
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j
The default configuration provided by this image is intended for learning about Neo4j, but must be modified to make it suitable for production use. In particular the memory assigned to Neo4j is very limited (see NEO4J_CACHE_MEMORY and NEO4J_HEAP_MEMORY below), to allow multiple containers to be run on the same server. You can read more about configuring Neo4j in the manual.
There are three ways to modify the configuration depending on how much you need to customize the image.
Pass environment variables to the container when you run it.
docker run \
--detach \
--publish=7474:7474 \
--volume=$HOME/neo4j/data:/data \
--env=NEO4J_CACHE_MEMORY=4G \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j
The following environment variables are available:
NEO4J_CACHE_MEMORY: the size of Neo4j's native-memory cache, defaults to 512MNEO4J_HEAP_MEMORY: the size of Neo4j's heap in MB, defaults to 512NEO4J_KEEP_LOGICAL_LOGS: the retention policy for logical logs, defaults to100M sizeNEO4J_AUTH: controls authentication, set tononeto disable authentication orneo4j/<password>to override the default password (see documentation here)NEO4J_THIRDPARTY_JAXRS_CLASSES: URI mappings for unmanaged extensions (see below)NEO4J_ALLOW_STORE_UPGRADE: set totrueto enable upgrades, defaults tofalse(see the manual for details)
The following settings control features that are only available in the Enterprise Edition of Neo4j.
NEO4J_DATABASE_MODE: the database mode, defaults toSINGLE, set toHAto create a clusterNEO4J_SERVER_ID: the id of the server, must be unique within a clusterNEO4J_HA_ADDRESS: the address which a server advertises to other members of a cluster in HA mode, this must be resolvable by all cluster membersNEO4J_INITIAL_HOSTS: comma-separated list of other members of the cluster
To make arbitrary modifications to the Neo4j configuration, provide the container with a /conf volume.
docker run \
--detach \
--publish=7474:7474 \
--volume=$HOME/neo4j-data:/data \
--volume=$HOME/neo4j-conf:/conf \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j
Any configuration files in the /conf volume will override files provided by the image. This includes values that may have been set in response to environment variables passed to the container by Docker. So if you want to change one value in a file you must ensure that the rest of the file is complete and correct.
To dump an initial set of configuration files, run the image with the dump-config command.
docker run --rm\
--volume=$HOME/neo4j-conf:/conf \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j dump-config
For more complex customization of the image you can create a new image based on this one.
FROM thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j
If you need to make your own configuration changes, we provide a hook so you can do that in a script:
COPY extra_conf.sh /extra_conf.sh
Then you can pass in the EXTENSION_SCRIPT environment variable at runtime to source the script:
docker run -e "EXTENSION_SCRIPT=/extra_conf.sh" cafe12345678
When the extension script is sourced, the current working directory will be the root of the Neo4j installation.
(This feature is only available in Neo4j Enterprise Edition.)
In order to run Neo4j in HA mode under Docker you need to wire up the containers in the cluster so that they can talk to each other. Each container must have a network route to each of the others and the NEO4J_HA_ADDRESS and NEO4J_INITIAL_HOSTS environment variables must be set according (see above).
Within a single Docker host, this can be achieved as follows.
docker network create --driver=bridge cluster
docker run --name=instance1 --detach --publish=7474:7474 --net=cluster --hostname=instance1 \
--env=NEO4J_DATABASE_MODE=HA --env=NEO4J_HA_ADDRESS=instance1 --env=NEO4J_SERVER_ID=1 \
--env=NEO4J_INITIAL_HOSTS=instance1:5001,instance2:5001,instance3:5001 \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j:enterprise
docker run --name=instance2 --detach --publish 7475:7474 --net=cluster --hostname=instance2 \
--env=NEO4J_DATABASE_MODE=HA --env=NEO4J_HA_ADDRESS=instance2 --env=NEO4J_SERVER_ID=2 \
--env=NEO4J_INITIAL_HOSTS=instance1:5001,instance2:5001,instance3:5001 \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j:enterprise
docker run --name=instance3 --detach --publish 7476:7474 --net=cluster --hostname=instance3 \
--env=NEO4J_DATABASE_MODE=HA --env=NEO4J_HA_ADDRESS=instance3 --env=NEO4J_SERVER_ID=3 \
--env=NEO4J_INITIAL_HOSTS=instance1:5001,instance2:5001,instance3:5001 \
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j:enterprise
To install a plugin or unmanaged extension, provide a /plugins volume containing the jars. For unmanged extensions you also need to provide an environment variable specifying a URI mapping.
docker run --publish 7474:7474 --volume=$HOME/neo4j/plugins:/plugins \
--env=NEO4J_THIRDPARTY_JAXRS_CLASSES=com.example.extension=/example
thetallgrassnet/alpine-neo4j
See the manual for more details on plugins and unmanaged extensions.
The Neo4j shell can be run locally within a container using a command like this:
docker exec --interactive <container> bin/neo4j-shell
Neo4j currently makes use of lsof to ensure the server is running and accepting connections on a given port. Some AppArmor configurations (specifically the default configuration on Linux Mint) prevent lsof from working as expected.
A workaround is to run the docker image in privileged mode, by adding --privileged=true to the docker command line. This is a workaround that disables the security provided by AppArmor, and is not recommended for deployments.
The current best known solution is to enable the use of ptrace in the docker profile of AppArmor. Do this by adding the following line to /etc/init.d/docker:
ptrace peer=docker-default,
Add this line before the last curly brace, and restart docker.
To use your own key and certificate, provide an /ssl volume with the key and certificate inside. The key filename must end in .key, and the certificate in .cert. Only one of each file may be present. You must also publish port 7473 to access the HTTPS endpoint.
docker run --publish 7473:7473 --volume $HOME/neo4j/ssl:/ssl neo4j/neo4j