Deploy Pleroma with Docker Compose

Deploy a personal self-hosted Pleroma instance that participates in the fediverse but does not allow new users to register.

Adapted from https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma-docker-compose.

Quick start in 5 steps

Step 1: Clone

$ git clone https://github.com/quasarito/pleroma-compose.git

Step 2: Configure

Modify the following environment settings in pleroma-compose.yml file:

services:
  pleroma:
    environment:
  ...
      DB_PASS: '##REPLACE-ME##'
  ...
      INSTANCE_NAME: My Pleroma
      ADMIN_EMAIL: pleroma+admin@example.com
      NOTIFY_EMAIL: pleroma+admin@example.com
      DOMAIN: social.example.com
  ...
  pleroma-db:
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: '##REPLACE-ME##'
  ...

Note:

• INSTANCE_NAME is the site name that appears in the upper-right corner.
• DOMAIN is the fully-qualified domain name of the server.
• DB_PASS & POSTGRES_PASSWORD must be the same value, obviously.

Step 3: Customize

• Copy the image you want to use for your site background to static/static/background.jpg. If you use a different filename, then you will need to edit the background property in the config.exs file.
• Copy the image you want to use for the logo that appears at the centre top of the site to static/static/logo.png. If you use a different filename, then you will need to edit the logo property in the config.exs file.
• Copy the image you want to use for the browser tab icon to static/favicon.png. The filename cannot be changed.

Step 4: Deploy

$ docker compose -f pleroma-compose.yml up -d

Step 5: Create admin user

$ docker compose -f pleroma-compose.yml exec pleroma sh

# You are now in the pleroma container shell
$$ /opt/pleroma/bin/pleroma_ctl user new userid someone@example.com --admin

Note:

• userid must not be prefixed with '@'.
• Repeat the command without the parameter --admin to create a normal user account.

When the command finishes, a URL will be output to set the user's account password. Copy-paste the URL into a browser and set a secure password. You can login with the newly created account.

Other info

• The Postgres database is not accessible from the host computer. Uncomment the ports section under the pleroma-db service of the pleroma-compose.yml file to be able to connect to the database from the host.
• The Pleroma docker image with tag stable is used for deployment. It can be changed to latest if you want the cutting edge version. Update the image property for the pleroma service of the pleroma-compose.yml file.

Reverse proxy with nginx

See README-nginx.md