Docker

Warning

If you're self hosting, we strongly suggest you stick to tagged releases, and don't follow main or latest

Follow the GitHub releases, and please read the notes for each release. Most of the time, upgrades can occur without any manual intervention.

We can't guarantee that all updates will apply cleanly, and some may require some extra steps.

A supplied docker image lets you deploy a server as a container. The "LATEST TAGGED RELEASE" can be found on the releases page.

CONFIG="$HOME/.config/atuin"
mkdir "$CONFIG"
chown 1000:1000 "$CONFIG"
docker run -d -v "$CONFIG:/config" ghcr.io/atuinsh/atuin:<LATEST TAGGED RELEASE> start

Docker Compose

You can also host your own Atuin server with the prebuilt docker image using the supplied docker-compose file.

Create a docker-compose.yml:

services:
  atuin:
    restart: always
    image: ghcr.io/atuinsh/atuin:<LATEST TAGGED RELEASE>
    command: start
    volumes:
      - "./config:/config"
    ports:
      - 8888:8888
    environment:
      ATUIN_HOST: "0.0.0.0"
      ATUIN_OPEN_REGISTRATION: "true"
      ATUIN_DB_URI: postgres://${ATUIN_DB_USERNAME}:${ATUIN_DB_PASSWORD}@db/${ATUIN_DB_NAME}
      RUST_LOG: info,atuin_server=debug
    depends_on:
      - db
  db:
    image: postgres:18
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes: # Don't remove permanent storage for index database files!
      - "./database:/var/lib/postgresql/"
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${ATUIN_DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${ATUIN_DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${ATUIN_DB_NAME}
      TZ: Europe/London
      PGTZ: Europe/London

Create a .env file next to docker-compose.yml with contents like this:

ATUIN_DB_NAME=atuin
ATUIN_DB_USERNAME=atuin
# Choose your own secure password. Stick to [A-Za-z0-9.~_-]
ATUIN_DB_PASSWORD=really-insecure

Start the services using docker compose:

mkdir config
chown 1000:1000 config
docker compose up -d

Using systemd to manage your Atuin server

The following systemd unit file can be used to manage your docker-compose managed service:

[Unit]
Description=Docker Compose Atuin Service
Requires=docker.service
After=docker.service

[Service]
# Where the docker-compose file is located
WorkingDirectory=/srv/atuin-server
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker compose up
ExecStop=/usr/bin/docker compose down
TimeoutStartSec=0
Restart=on-failure
StartLimitBurst=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start and enable the service with:

systemctl enable --now atuin

Check if it's running with:

systemctl status atuin

Creating backups of the Postgres database

You can add another service to your docker-compose.yml file to have it run daily backups. It should look like this:

  backup:
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: atuin_db_dumper
    image: prodrigestivill/postgres-backup-local
    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      POSTGRES_HOST: db
      POSTGRES_DB: ${ATUIN_DB_NAME}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${ATUIN_DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${ATUIN_DB_PASSWORD}
      SCHEDULE: "@daily"
      BACKUP_DIR: /db_dumps
      TZ: Europe/London
    volumes:
      - ./db_dumps:/db_dumps
    depends_on:
      - db

This will create daily backups of your database for that additional layer of comfort.

Warning

The ./db_dumps mount must use a POSIX-compliant filesystem that supports hard links and symlinks. Filesystems such as VFAT, exFAT, and SMB/CIFS won't work with this image. See docker-postgres-backup-local for the retention settings and how backups work.