[Docker](https://www.docker.com/) is a convenient and secure way to install server applications either locally or on a server you control. If you don’t have docker already running on your machine and are macOS user, consider giving [OrbStack](https://orbstack.dev/) a try — it’s a super nice docker experience.
Conveniently, SilverBullet is published as a [docker image on docker hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/zefhemel/silverbullet). The image comes in two flavors:
* 64-bit Intel
* 64-bit ARM (e.g. for Raspberry Pis and Apple Silicon macs)
There is no 32-bit version of Deno, and therefore we cannot offer a 32-bit version of SilverBullet either. Most people run 64-bit OSes these days, an exception may be Raspberry Pis. Recent (RPI 3 and later) can run 64-bit Linux as well, you may have to re-image, though.
A few key things to know about the SilverBullet container image:
* The container binds to port `3000`, so be sure to port-map that, e.g. via `-p 3000:3000` (note: the first `3000` is the external port)
* The container uses whatever is volume-mapped to `/space` as the space root folder. You can connect a docker volume, or a host folder to this, e.g. `-v /home/myuser/space:/space`
* SilverBullet will detect the UNIX owner (UID and GID) of the folder mapped into `/space` and run the server process with the same UID and GID so that permissions will just magically work. If you’d like to override this UID, set the `PUID` and `PGID` environment variables (see [[Install/Configuration]] for details).
# Setup
For your first run, you can run the following:
```shell
# Create a local folder "space" to keep files in
$ mkdir -p space
# Run the SilverBullet docker container in the foreground
This will run SilverBullet in the foreground, interactively, so you can see the logs and instructions.
If this all works fine, just kill the thing with `Ctrl-c` (don’t worry, it’s ok).
Now you probably want to run the container in daemon (background) mode, give it a name, and automatically have it restart after you e.g. reboot your machine:
The `zefhemel/silverbullet` image will give you the latest released version. This is equivalent to `zefhemel/silverbullet:latest`. If you prefer, you can also pin to a specific release, e.g. `zefhemel/silverbullet:0.5.5`. If you prefer to live on the bleeding edge, you can use the `zefhemel/silverbullet:edge` image, which is updated on every commit to the `main` brain. This is the YOLO option.
Since this is somewhat burdensome, it is recommended you use a tool like [watchtower](https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower) to automatically update your docker images and restart them. However, if we go there — we may as well use a tool like _docker compose_ to manage your containers, no?
# Docker compose
[Docker compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/) is a simple tool to manage running of multiple containers on a server you control. It’s like Kubernetes, but you know, not insanely complex.
Here is a simple `compose.yml` that runs SilverBullet as well as [watchtower](https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower), which will check for new SilverBullet upgrades daily (the default) and upgrade automatically.
Instructions:
* Please replace the password defined in `SB_USER` with something sensible such as `admin:b3stp4ssword3vah`
* This volume uses the `./space` directory (that presumably exists) in the same directory as the `compose.yml` file as the place where SB will keep its space.
* Check out [[Install/Configuration]] for more interesting `environment` variables you can set.