mealie/docs/docs/documentation/getting-started/install.md

Installation

To deploy mealie on your local network it is highly recommended to use docker to deploy the image straight from dockerhub. Using the docker-compose below you should be able to get a stack up and running easily by changing a few default values and deploying. You can deploy with either SQLite (default) or Postgres. SQLite is sufficient for most use cases. Additionally, with mealies automated backup and restore functionality, you can easily move between SQLite and Postgres as you wish.

Get Docker

Mealie on Dockerhub

• linux/amd64
• linux/arm64

Quick Start - Docker CLI

Deployment with the Docker CLI can be done with docker run and specify the database type, in this case sqlite, setting the exposed port 9925, mounting the current directory, and pull the latest image. After the image is up and running you can navigate to http://your.ip.address:9925 and you'll should see mealie up and running!

docker run \
    -p 9925:80 \
    -v `pwd`:'/app/data/' \
    hkotel/mealie:latest

!!! tip "Default Credentials"

**Username:** changeme@email.com

**Password:** MyPassword

Docker Compose with SQLite

Deployment with docker-compose is the recommended method for deployment. The example below will create an instance of mealie available on port 9925 with the data volume mounted from the local directory. To use, create a docker-compose.yml file, paste the contents below and save. In the terminal run docker-compose up -d to start the container.

version: "3.1"
services:
  mealie:
    container_name: mealie
    image: hkotel/mealie:latest
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 9925:80
    environment:
      PUID: 1000
      PGID: 1000
      TZ: America/Anchorage

      # Default Recipe Settings
      RECIPE_PUBLIC: true
      RECIPE_SHOW_NUTRITION: true
      RECIPE_SHOW_ASSETS: true
      RECIPE_LANDSCAPE_VIEW: true
      RECIPE_DISABLE_COMMENTS: false
      RECIPE_DISABLE_AMOUNT: false

      # Gunicorn
      WEB_CONCURRENCY: 2
      # WORKERS_PER_CORE: 0.5
      # MAX_WORKERS: 8
    volumes:
      - ./mealie/data/:/app/data

Docker Compose with Postgres (BETA)

Postgres support was introduced in v0.5.0. At this point it should be used with caution and frequent backups.

version: "3.1"
services:
  mealie:
    container_name: mealie
    image: hkotel/mealie:latest
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 9090:80
    depends_on:
      - postgres
    environment:
      PUID: 1000
      PGID: 1000
      TZ: America/Anchorage

      # Database Settings
      DB_ENGINE: postgres # Optional: 'sqlite', 'postgres'
      POSTGRES_USER: mealie
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: mealie
      POSTGRES_SERVER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PORT: 5432
      POSTGRES_DB: mealie

      # Default Recipe Settings
      RECIPE_PUBLIC: true
      RECIPE_SHOW_NUTRITION: true
      RECIPE_SHOW_ASSETS: true
      RECIPE_LANDSCAPE_VIEW: true
      RECIPE_DISABLE_COMMENTS: false
      RECIPE_DISABLE_AMOUNT: false

      # Gunicorn
      WEB_CONCURRENCY: 2
      # WORKERS_PER_CORE: 0.5
      # MAX_WORKERS: 8
    volumes:
      - ./mealie/data/:/app/data
  postgres:
    container_name: postgres
    image: postgres
    restart: always
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: mealie
      POSTGRES_USER: mealie

API Environment Variables

General

Variables	Default	Description
PUID	911	UserID permissions between host OS and container
PGID	911	GroupID permissions between host OS and container
DEFAULT_GROUP	Home	The default group for users
DEFAULT_EMAIL	changeme@email.com	The default username for the superuser
BASE_URL	http://localhost:8080	Used for Notifications
TOKEN_TIME	2	The time in hours that a login/auth token is valid
API_PORT	9000	The port exposed by backend API. Do not change this if you're running in Docker
API_DOCS	True	Turns on/off access to the API documentation locally.
TZ	UTC	Must be set to get correct date/time on the server

Database

Variables	Default	Description
DB_ENGINE	sqlite	Optional: 'sqlite', 'postgres'
POSTGRES_USER	mealie	Postgres database user
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	mealie	Postgres database password
POSTGRES_SERVER	postgres	Postgres database server address
POSTGRES_PORT	5432	Postgres database port
POSTGRES_DB	mealie	Postgres database name

Email

Variables	Default	Description
SMTP_HOST	None	Required For email
SMTP_PORT	587	Required For email
SMTP_FROM_NAME	Mealie	Required For email
SMTP_TLS	true	Required For email
SMTP_FROM_EMAIL	None	Required For email
SMTP_USER	None	Required For email
SMTP_PASSWORD	None	Required For email

Webworkers

Variables	Default	Description
WORKERS_PER_CORE	1	Set the number of workers to the number of CPU cores multiplied by this value (Value * CPUs). More info here
MAX_WORKERS		Set the maximum number of workers to use. Default is not set meaning unlimited. More info here
WEB_CONCURRENCY	2	Override the automatic definition of number of workers. More info here

Frontend Environment Variables

General

Variables	Default	Description
ALLOW_SIGNUP	true	Allows anyone to signup for Mealie

Themeing

Variables	Default	Description
THEME_LIGHT_PRIMARY	#E58325	Light Theme Config Variable
THEME_LIGHT_ACCENT	#007A99	Light Theme Config Variable
THEME_LIGHT_SECONDARY	#973542	Light Theme Config Variable
THEME_LIGHT_SUCCESS	#43A047	Light Theme Config Variable
THEME_LIGHT_INFO	#1976D2	Light Theme Config Variable
THEME_LIGHT_WARNING	#FF6D00	Light Theme Config Variable
THEME_LIGHT_ERROR	#EF5350	Light Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_PRIMARY	#E58325	Dark Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_ACCENT	#007A99	Dark Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_SECONDARY	#973542	Dark Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_SUCCESS	#43A047	Dark Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_INFO	#1976D2	Dark Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_WARNING	#FF6D00	Dark Theme Config Variable
DARK_LIGHT_ERROR	#EF5350	Dark Theme Config Variable

Raspberry Pi 4

!!! tip "Fatal Python error: init_interp_main: can't initialize time"

Some users experience an problem with running the linux/arm/v7 container on Raspberry Pi 4. This is not a problem with the Mealie container, but with a bug in the hosts Docker installation.

Update the host RP4 using [instructions](https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-papermerge/issues/4#issuecomment-735236388), summarized here:

```shell
wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libs/libseccomp/libseccomp2_2.5.1-1_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i libseccomp2_2.5.1-1_armhf.deb
```

Advanced

!!! warning "Not Required"

The items below are completely optional and are not required to manage or install your Mealie instance.

Custom Caddy File

The Docker image provided by Mealie contains both the API and the html bundle in one convenient image. This is done by using a proxy server to serve different parts of the application depending on the URL/URI. Requests sent to /api/* or /docs will be directed to the API, anything else will be served the static web files. Below is the default Caddyfile that is used to proxy requests. You can override this file by mounting an alternative Caddyfile to /app/Caddyfile.

{
  auto_https off
  admin off
}

:80 {
  @proxied path /api/* /docs /openapi.json

  root * /app/dist
  encode gzip
  uri strip_suffix /

  handle_path /api/recipes/image/* {
    root * /app/data/img/
    file_server
  }

  handle @proxied {
    reverse_proxy http://127.0.0.1:9000
  }

  handle {
    try_files {path}.html {path} /
    file_server
  }
}

Deployed without Docker

!!! error "Unsupported Deployment"

If you are experiencing a problem with manual deployment, please do not submit a github issue unless it is related to an aspect of the application. For deployment help, the [discord server](https://discord.gg/QuStdQGSGK) is a better place to find support.

Alternatively, this project is built on Python and SQLite so you may run it as a python application on your server. This is not a supported options for deployment and is only here as a reference for those who would like to do this on their own. To get started you can clone this repository into a directory of your choice and use the instructions below as a reference for how to get started.

There are three parts to the Mealie application

• Frontend/Static Files
• Backend API
• Proxy Server

Frontend/ Static Files

The frontend static files are generated with npm run build. This is done during the build process with docker. If you choose to deploy this as a system application you must do this process yourself. In the project directory run cd frontend to change directories into the frontend directory and run npm install and then npm run build. This will generate the static files in a dist folder in the frontend directory.

Backend API

The backend API is build with Python, FastAPI, and SQLite and requires Python 3.9, and Poetry. Once the requirements are installed, in the project directory you can run the command poetry install to create a python virtual environment and install the python dependencies.

Once the dependencies are installed you should be ready to run the server. To initialize that database you need to first run python mealie/db/init_db.py. Then to start The web server, you run the command uvicorn mealie.app:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 9000

Proxy Server

You must use a proxy server to server up the static files created with npm run build and proxy requests to the API. In the docker build this is done with Caddy. You can use the CaddyFile in the section above as a reference. One important thing to keep in mind is that you should drop any trailing / in the url. Not doing this may result in failed API requests.