documentation/Installation.md

---
title: Installation
description: 
published: true
date: 2021-05-23T16:58:48.374Z
tags: 
editor: markdown
dateCreated: 2021-02-25T11:24:06.655Z
---

# Installation

Compiling Invidious requires at least 2GB of free RAM (We recommend to have at least 3GB installed).
If you have less (e.g on a cheap VPS) you can setup a SWAP file or partition, so the combined amount is >= 3GB.

After installation take a look at the [Post-install steps](#post-install-configuration).

Note: Any [PaaS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service) or [SaaS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service) provider/software (Heroku, YunoHost, Repli...) are unsupported. Use them at your own risk. They **WILL** cause problems with Invidious and might even suspend your account for "abuse" since Invidious is heavy, bandwidth intensive and technically a proxy (and most providers don't like them). If you use one and want to report an issue, please mention which one you use.


## Automated Installation

[Invidious-Updater](https://github.com/tmiland/Invidious-Updater) is a self-contained script that can automatically install and update Invidious.


## Docker

> The Invidious docker image is only [available on Quay](https://quay.io/repository/invidious/invidious) because, unlike Docker Hub, [Quay is Free and Open Source Software](https://github.com/quay/quay/blob/master/LICENSE). This is reflected in the `docker-compose.yml` file used in this walk-through.{.is-warning}

Ensure [Docker Engine](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install) and [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install) are installed before beginning.

### Docker-compose method (production)

**This method uses the pre-built Docker image from quay**

Note: Currently the repository has to be cloned, this is because the `init-invidious-db.sh` file and the `config/sql` directory have to be mounted to the postgres container (See the volumes section in the docker-compose file below). This "problem" will be solved in the future.

```bash
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.git
cd invidious
```

Edit the docker-compose.yml with this content:

```docker
version: "3"
services:

  invidious:
    image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:latest
    # image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:latest-arm64 # ARM64/AArch64 devices
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
    environment:
      # Please read the following file for a comprehensive list of all available
      # configuration options and their associated syntax:
      # https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/blob/master/config/config.example.yml
      INVIDIOUS_CONFIG: |
        db:
          dbname: invidious
          user: kemal
          password: kemal
          host: invidious-db
          port: 5432
        check_tables: true
        # external_port:
        # domain:
        # https_only: false
        # statistics_enabled: false
    healthcheck:
      test: wget -nv --tries=1 --spider http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/v1/comments/jNQXAC9IVRw || exit 1
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 2
    depends_on:
      - invidious-db

  invidious-db:
    image: docker.io/library/postgres:14
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - postgresdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./config/sql:/config/sql
      - ./docker/init-invidious-db.sh:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init-invidious-db.sh
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: invidious
      POSTGRES_USER: kemal
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: kemal
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U $$POSTGRES_USER -d $$POSTGRES_DB"]

volumes:
  postgresdata:
```

Note: This compose is made for a true "production" setup, where Invidious is behind a reverse proxy. If you prefer to directly access Invidious, replace `127.0.0.1:3000:3000` with `3000:3000` under the `ports:` section.

> The environment variable `POSTGRES_USER` cannot be changed. The SQL config files that run the initial database migrations are hard-coded with the username `kemal`.
{.is-warning}


### Docker-compose method (development)

**This method builds a Docker image from source**

```bash
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.git
cd invidious
docker-compose up
```


## Manual Installation

### Linux

#### Install Crystal

Follow the instructions for your distribution here: https://crystal-lang.org/install/

#### Install the dependencies

Arch Linux
```bash
sudo pacman -S base-devel librsvg postgresql
```

Debian/Ubuntu
```bash
sudo apt install libssl-dev libxml2-dev libyaml-dev libgmp-dev libreadline-dev postgresql librsvg2-bin libsqlite3-dev zlib1g-dev libpcre3-dev libevent-dev
```

RHEL based and RHEL-like systems (RHEL, Fedora, AlmaLinux, RockyLinux...)
```bash
sudo dnf install -y openssl-devel libevent-devel libxml2-devel libyaml-devel gmp-devel readline-devel postgresql librsvg2-devel sqlite-devel zlib-devel gcc
```

#### Add an Invidious user and clone the repository

```bash
useradd -m invidious
su - invidious
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
exit
```

#### Set up PostgresSQL

```bash
systemctl enable --now postgresql
sudo -i -u postgres
psql -c "CREATE USER kemal WITH PASSWORD 'kemal';" # Change 'kemal' here to a stronger password, and update `password` in config/config.yml
createdb -O kemal invidious
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/channels.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/channel_videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/users.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/session_ids.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/nonces.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/annotations.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/playlists.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/playlist_videos.sql
exit
```

#### Set up Invidious

```bash
su - invidious
cd invidious
shards install --production
crystal build src/invidious.cr --release
exit
```

#### Systemd service

```bash
cp /home/invidious/invidious/invidious.service /etc/systemd/system/invidious.service
systemctl enable --now invidious.service
```

### MacOS

```bash
# Install dependencies
brew update
brew install shards crystal postgres imagemagick librsvg

# Clone the repository and set up a PostgreSQL database
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
cd invidious
brew services start postgresql
psql -c "CREATE ROLE kemal WITH PASSWORD 'kemal';" # Change 'kemal' here to a stronger password, and update `password` in config/config.yml
createdb -O kemal invidious
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/channels.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/channel_videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/users.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/session_ids.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/nonces.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/annotations.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/privacy.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/playlists.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/playlist_videos.sql

# Set up Invidious
shards update && shards install && crystal build src/invidious.cr --release
```

## Post-install configuration:

Detailed configuration available in the [configuration guide](./Configuration.md).

Because of various issues Invidious **must** be restarted often, at least once a day, ideally every hour.

If you use a reverse proxy, you **must** configure invidious to properly serve request through it:

`https_only: true` : if you are serving your instance via https, set it to true

`domain: domain.ext`: if you are serving your instance via a domain name, set it here

`external_port: 443`: if you are serving your instance via https, set it to 443

## Update Invidious

#### Updating a Docker install
```bash
docker-compose pull && docker-compose up && docker image prune -f
```

#### Update a manual install
```bash
sudo - invidious
cd invidious
shards update && shards install && crystal build src/invidious.cr --release
exit
systemctl restart invidious.service
```

## Usage:

```bash
./invidious
```


#### Logrotate configuration

```bash
echo "/home/invidious/invidious/invidious.log {
rotate 4
weekly
notifempty
missingok
compress
minsize 1048576
}" | tee /etc/logrotate.d/invidious.logrotate
chmod 0644 /etc/logrotate.d/invidious.logrotate
```