linkding on fly

🔖 Run the self-hosted bookmark service linkding on fly.io. Automatically backup the bookmark database to B2 with litestream.

Pricing

Assuming one 256MB VM and a 3GB volume, this setup fits within Fly's free tier. ¹ Backups with B2 are free as well. ²

Prerequisites

• a fly.io account
• a backblaze account
• a clone of this repository

All commands should be run in the directory of your local clone of this repository.

Install flyctl

Follow the instructions to install fly's command-line interface flyctl.

Then, log into flyctl.

flyctl auth login

Launch a fly application

Launch the fly application. When asked, do not setup Postgres and do not deploy yet.

flyctl launch

This command creates a fly.toml file. Open it and add an env section.

[env]
  # linkding's internal port, should be 8080 on fly.
  LD_SERVER_PORT="8080"
  # Path to linkding's sqlite database.
  DB_PATH="/etc/linkding/data/db.sqlite3"
  # B2 replica path.
  LITESTREAM_REPLICA_PATH="linkding_replica.sqlite3"
  # B2 endpoint.
  LITESTREAM_REPLICA_ENDPOINT="<filled_later>"
  # B2 bucket name.
  LITESTREAM_REPLICA_BUCKET="<filled_later>"

Add a persistent volume

Create a persistent volume. Fly's free tier includes 3GB of storage across your VMs. Since linkding is very light on storage, a 1GB volume will be more than enough for most use cases. It's possible to change volume size later. A how-to can be found in the "scale persistent volume" section below.

flyctl volumes create linkding_data --region <your_region> --size <size_in_gb>

Attach the persistent volume to the container by adding a mounts section to fly.toml.

[mounts]
source="linkding_data"
destination="/etc/linkding/data"

Configure litestream backups

ℹ️ If you want to use another storage provider, check litestream's "Replica Guides" section and adjust the config as needed.

Log into B2 and create a bucket. Instead of adjusting the litestream config directly, we will add storage configuration to fly.toml. In the env section, set LITESTREAM_REPLICA_ENDPOINT and LITESTREAM_REPLICA_BUCKET to your newly created bucket's endpoint and name.

Then, create an access key for this bucket. Add the key to fly's secret store.

flyctl secrets set LITESTREAM_ACCESS_KEY_ID="<keyId>" LITESTREAM_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="<applicationKey>"

Deploy to fly

Deploy the application to fly.

flyctl deploy

If all is well, you can now access linkding by running flyctl open. You should see its login page.

Create a linkding superuser

If you have never used fly's SSH console before, begin by setting up fly's ssh-agent.

flyctl ssh establish

# use agent if possible, otherwise follow on-screen instructions.
flyctl ssh issue --agent

Then, run flyctl ssh console to get an interactive shell in your running container. You can now create a superuser by running the createsuperuser command and entering a password.

cd /etc/linkding
python manage.py createsuperuser --username=<your_username> --email=<your_email>
exit

That's it! You can now log into your linkding installation and start using it.

If you wish, you can configure a custom domain for your install.

Verify the installation

• you should be able to log into your linkding instance.
• there should be an initial replica of your database in your B2 bucket.
• your user data should survive a restart of the VM.

Verify backups / scale persistent volume

Litestream continuously backs up your database by persisting its WAL to B2, once per second.

There are two ways to verify these backups:

1. run the docker image locally or on a second VM. Verify the DB restores correctly.
2. swap the fly volume for a new one and verify the DB restores correctly.

We will focus on 2 as it simulates an actual data loss scenario. This procedure can also be used to scale your volume to a different size.

Start by making a manual backup of your data:

1. ssh into the VM and copy the DB to a remote. If only you are using your instance, you can also export bookmarks as HTML.
2. make a snapshot of the B2 bucket in the B2 admin panel.

Now list all fly volumes and note the id of the linkding_data volume. Then, delete the volume.

flyctl volumes list
flyctl volumes delete <id>

This will result in a dead VM after a few seconds. Create a new linkding_data volume. Your application should automatically attempt to restart. If not, restart it manually.

When the application starts, you should see the successful restore in the logs.

[info] No database found, attempt to restore from a replica.
[info] Finished restoring the database.
[info] Starting litestream & linkding service.

Troubleshooting

litestream is logging 403 errors

Check that your B2 secrets and environment variables are correct.

fly ssh does not connect

Check the output of flyctl doctor, every line should be marked as PASSED. If Pinging WireGuard fails, try flyctl wireguard reset and flyctl agent restart.

fly does not pull in the latest version of linkding

either:

• specify a version number in the Dockerfile
• run flyctl deploy with the --no-cache option

Footnotes

1. otherwise the VM is ~$2 per month. $0.15/GB per month for the persistent volume. ↩

2. the first 10GB are free, then $0.005 per GB. ↩