Self-Hosting Quickstart
Install Docker
You should have Docker installed and running on your machine. You can download it here.
What Is Docker?
Docker is a developer tool that allows software-creators to distribute their work along with all dependencies and required environment settings. This means that applications can run reliably and consistently, making it the perfect way to use Directus both locally and in-production.
As soon as there are new releases of Directus, we publish them on Docker Hub.
Create a Docker Compose File
Create a new empty folder on your Desktop called directus
. Within this new folder, create the three empty folders database
, uploads
, and extensions
.
Open a text editor such as Visual Studio Code, nano, Vim, TextEdit, or Notepad.
Copy and paste the following and save the file as docker-compose.yml
:
version: "3"
services:
directus:
image: directus/directus:11.3.2
ports:
- 8055:8055
volumes:
- ./database:/directus/database
- ./uploads:/directus/uploads
- ./extensions:/directus/extensions
environment:
SECRET: "replace-with-secure-random-value"
ADMIN_EMAIL: "admin@example.com"
ADMIN_PASSWORD: "d1r3ctu5"
DB_CLIENT: "sqlite3"
DB_FILENAME: "/directus/database/data.db"
WEBSOCKETS_ENABLED: "true"
version: "3"
services:
directus:
image: directus/directus:11.3.2
ports:
- 8055:8055
volumes:
- ./database:/directus/database
- ./uploads:/directus/uploads
- ./extensions:/directus/extensions
environment:
SECRET: "replace-with-secure-random-value"
ADMIN_EMAIL: "admin@example.com"
ADMIN_PASSWORD: "d1r3ctu5"
DB_CLIENT: "sqlite3"
DB_FILENAME: "/directus/database/data.db"
WEBSOCKETS_ENABLED: "true"
Save the file. Let's step through it:
- This file defines a single Docker container that will use the specified version of the
directus/directus
image. - The
ports
list maps internal port8055
is made available to our machine using the same port number, meaning we can access it from our computer's browser. - The
volumes
section maps internaldatabase
,uploads
andextensions
data to our local file system alongside thedocker-compose.yml
- meaning data is stored and persisted outside of Docker containers. - The
environment
section contains any configuration variables we wish to set.SECRET
is required and should be a secure random value, it's used to sign tokens.ADMIN_EMAIL
andADMIN_PASSWORD
is the initial admin user credentials on first launch.DB_CLIENT
andDB_FILENAME
are defining the connection to your database.WEBSOCKETS_ENABLED
is not required, but enables Directus Realtime.
The volumes section is not required, but without this, our database and file uploads will be destroyed when the Docker container stops running. The default database is SQLite - a self-contained server-less database that stores data to a file.
Run Directus
Open the Terminal and run the following commands one line at a time:
cd Desktop/directus
docker compose up
cd Desktop/directus
docker compose up
Directus should now be available at http://localhost:8055 or http://127.0.0.1:8055.