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Installation

Docker Production Server

The following guide provides a streamlined production InvenTree installation, with minimal configuration required.

Docker Installation

This guide assumes that you have already installed Docker and Docker Compose. If you have not yet installed Docker, please refer to the official installation guide.

Starting Point

This setup guide should be considered a starting point - your particular production requirements vary from the example shown here.

Docker Theory

Refer to the docker theory section for more information about how our docker installation works under the hood.

Before You Start

Check the version

Please make sure you are reading the STABLE documentation when using the stable docker image tags.

Docker Knowledge Required

This guide assumes that you are reasonably comfortable with the basic concepts of docker and docker compose.

Docker Installation

Required Files

The following files required for this setup are provided with the InvenTree source, located in the contrib/container/ directory of the InvenTree source code:

Filename Description
docker-compose.yml The docker compose script
.env Environment variables
Caddyfile Caddy configuration file

Download these files to a directory on your local machine.

File Extensions

If your computer adds .txt extensions to any of the downloaded files, rename the file and remove the added extension before continuing!

Working Directory

This tutorial assumes you are working from a directory where all of these files are located.

No Source Required

For a production setup you do not need the InvenTree source code. Simply download the three required files from the links above!

Edit Environment Variables

The first step is to edit the environment variables, located in the .env file.

External Volume

You must define the INVENTREE_EXT_VOLUME variable - this must point to a directory on your local machine where persistent data is to be stored.

Database Credentials

You must also define the database username (INVENTREE_DB_USER) and password (INVENTREE_DB_PASSWORD). You should ensure they are changed from the default values for added security

Other Variables

There are a number of other environment variables which can be set to customize the InvenTree installation. Refer to the environment variables documentation for more information.

Initial Database Setup

Perform the initial database setup by running the following command:

docker compose run --rm inventree-server invoke update

This command performs the following steps:

  • Ensure required python packages are installed
  • Create a new (empty) database
  • Perform the required schema updates to create the required database tables
  • Update translation files
  • Update required static files

Create Administrator Account

If you are creating the initial database, you need to create an admin (superuser) account for the database. Run the command below, and follow the prompts:

docker compose run inventree-server invoke superuser

Alternatively, admin account details can be specified in the .env file, removing the need for this manual step:

Variable Description
INVENTREE_ADMIN_USER Admin account username
INVENTREE_ADMIN_PASSWORD Admin account password
INVENTREE_ADMIN_EMAIL Admin account email address

Scrub Account Data

Ensure that the admin account credentials are removed from the .env file after the first run, for security.

Start Docker Containers

Now that the database has been created, migrations applied, and you have created an admin account, we are ready to launch the InvenTree containers:

docker compose up -d

This command launches the following containers:

Up and Running!

You should now be able to view the InvenTree login screen at http://inventree.localhost (or whatever custom domain you have configured in the .env file).

External Access

Note that http://inventree.localhost will only be available from the machine you are running the code on. To make it accessible externally, change INVENTREE_SITE_URL to a host address which can be accessed by other computers on your network.

Updating InvenTree

To update your InvenTree installation to the latest version, follow these steps:

Stop Containers

Stop all running containers as below:

docker compose down

Update Images

Pull down the latest version of the InvenTree docker image

docker compose pull

This ensures that the InvenTree containers will be running the latest version of the InvenTree source code.

Docker Directory

All docker compose commands must be performed in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file

Tagged Version

If you are targeting a particular "tagged" version of InvenTree, you may wish to edit the INVENTREE_TAG variable in the .env file before issuing the docker compose pull command

Update Database

Run the following command to ensure that the InvenTree database is updated:

docker compose run --rm inventree-server invoke update

Skip Backup

By default, the invoke update command performs a database backup. To skip this step, add the --skip-backup flag

Start Containers

Now restart the docker containers:

docker compose up -d

Data Backup

Database and media files are stored external to the container, in the volume location specified in the docker-compose.yml file. It is strongly recommended that a backup of the files in this volume is performed on a regular basis.

Read more about data backup.

Exporting Database as JSON

To export the database to an agnostic JSON file, perform the following command:

docker compose run --rm inventree-server invoke export-records -f /home/inventree/data/data.json

This will export database records to the file data.json in your mounted volume directory.

Further Configuration

Custom Domain

By default, the InvenTree server is accessible at http://inventree.localhost. If you wish to use a custom domain, you can edit the .env environment file to specify the domain name.

Look for the INVENTREE_SITE_URL variable, and set it to the desired domain name.

Configuration Options

There are a number of other environment variables which can be set to customize the InvenTree installation. Refer to the configuration documentation for more information.

SSL Configuration

The provided Caddyfile configuration file is setup to enable Automatic HTTPS "out of the box". All you have to do is specify a https:// URL in the INVENTREE_SITE_URL variable.

The Caddy container will automatically generate SSL certificates for your domain.

Persistent Files

Any persistent files generated by the Caddy container (such as certificates, etc) will be stored in the caddy directory within the external volume.

Demo Dataset

To quickly get started with a demo dataset, you can run the following command:

docker compose run --rm inventree-server invoke dev.setup-test -i

This will install the InvenTree demo dataset into your instance.

To start afresh (and completely remove the existing database), run the following command:

docker compose run --rm inventree-server invoke dev.delete-data

Install custom packages

To install custom packages to your docker image, a custom docker image can be built and used automatically each time when updating. The following changes need to be applied to the docker compose file:

docker-compose.yml changes 
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 8adee63..dc3993c 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -69,7 +69,14 @@ services:
     # Uses gunicorn as the web server
     inventree-server:
         # If you wish to specify a particular InvenTree version, do so here
-        image: inventree/inventree:${INVENTREE_TAG:-stable}
+        image: inventree/inventree:${INVENTREE_TAG:-stable}-custom
+        pull_policy: never
+        build:
+          context: .
+          dockerfile: Dockerfile
+          target: production
+          args:
+            INVENTREE_TAG: ${INVENTREE_TAG:-stable}
         # Only change this port if you understand the stack.
         # If you change this you have to change:
         # - the proxy settings (on two lines)
@@ -88,7 +95,8 @@ services:
     # Background worker process handles long-running or periodic tasks
     inventree-worker:
         # If you wish to specify a particular InvenTree version, do so here
-        image: inventree/inventree:${INVENTREE_TAG:-stable}
+        image: inventree/inventree:${INVENTREE_TAG:-stable}-custom
+        pull_policy: never
         command: invoke worker
         depends_on:
             - inventree-server

And the following Dockerfile needs to be created:

Dockerfile 
ARG INVENTREE_TAG

FROM inventree/inventree:${INVENTREE_TAG} as production

# Install whatever dependency is needed here (e.g. git)
RUN apk add --no-cache git

And if additional, development packages are needed e.g. just for building a wheel for a pip package, a multi stage build can be used with the following Dockerfile:

Dockerfile 
ARG INVENTREE_TAG

# prebuild stage - needs a lot of build dependencies
# make sure, the alpine and python version matches the version used in the inventree base image
FROM python:3.11-alpine3.18 as prebuild

# Install whatever development dependency is needed (e.g. cups-dev, gcc, the musl-dev build tools and the pip pycups package)
RUN apk add --no-cache cups-dev gcc musl-dev && \
    pip install --user --no-cache-dir pycups

# production image - only install the cups shared library
FROM inventree/inventree:${INVENTREE_TAG} as production

# Install e.g. shared library later available in the final image
RUN apk add --no-cache cups-libs

# Copy the pip wheels from the build stage in the production stage
COPY --from=prebuild /root/.local /root/.local