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Paperless NGX Paperless NGX

Stack

CloudManagementProductivity

Paperless-ngx is a document management system that transforms your physical documents into a searchable online archive so you can keep, well, less paper. Paperless-ngx forked from paperless-ng to continue the great work and distribute responsibility of supporting and advancing the project among a team of people. Consider joining us! Discussion of this transition can be found in issues #1599 and #1632. A demo is available at demo.paperless-ngx.com using login demo / demo. Note: demo content is reset frequently and confidential information should not be uploaded.

Configuration

Type
Compose
Platform
linux
Env vars
PUID=1000PGID=1000TZ=America/New_YorkPAPERLESSURL=ADMIN_USER=ADMIN_PASS=RANDOMKEY=LANG=eng
Restart
unless-stopped
Source
Repo

Template by novaspirit·Source

Notes

Template created by Pi-Hosted Series
Check our Github page: https://github.com/pi-hosted/pi-hosted

Official Webpage: https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx
Official Docker Documentation: https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx


Services

broker

Configuration

Image
docker.io/library/redis:6.0
Volumes
/data : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/redis/data
Restart
unless-stopped

Image details

Pulls: 11.1B
User: stackbrew
Created: Jun 05, 2014
Updated: 9 days ago
Status: active

webserver

Configuration

Image
ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest
Ports
8010:8000
Volumes
/usr/src/paperless/data : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/data/usr/src/paperless/media : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/media/usr/src/paperless/export : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/export/usr/src/paperless/consume : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/consume
Env vars
PAPERLESS_REDIS=redis://broker:6379USERMAP_UID=${PUID}USERMAP_GID=${PGID}PAPERLESS_TIME_ZONE=${TZ}PAPERLESS_URL=${PAPERLESSURL}PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY=${RANDOMKEY}PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE=${LANG}PAPERLESS_ADMIN_USER=${ADMIN_USER}PAPERLESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD=${ADMIN_PASS}
Restart
unless-stopped

Image details

User: paperless-ngx

Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying Paperless NGX

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select Paperless NGX, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo
Original stackfile

The compose file this template deploys, straight from its repo:

version: "3.4"
services:
  broker:
    image: docker.io/library/redis:6.0
    networks:
      - paperless_network
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/redis/data:/data

  webserver:
    image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - broker
    ports:
      - 8010:8000
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-fs", "-S", "--max-time", "2", "http://localhost:8000"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 5
    environment:
      PAPERLESS_REDIS: redis://broker:6379
      USERMAP_UID: ${PUID}
      USERMAP_GID: ${PGID}
      PAPERLESS_TIME_ZONE: ${TZ}
      PAPERLESS_URL: ${PAPERLESSURL}
      PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY: ${RANDOMKEY}
      PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE: ${LANG}
      PAPERLESS_ADMIN_USER: ${ADMIN_USER}
      PAPERLESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${ADMIN_PASS}
    networks:
      - paperless_network
    volumes:
      - /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/data:/usr/src/paperless/data
      - /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/media:/usr/src/paperless/media
      - /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/export:/usr/src/paperless/export
      - /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/consume:/usr/src/paperless/consume

networks:
  paperless_network:

Or deploy it directly from the source:

git clone https://github.com/pi-hosted/pi-hosted/
cd pi-hosted
docker compose -f stack/paperless-ngx.yml up -d

More install options in our documentation.

Container Documentation

broker Documentation

Redis is the world’s fastest data platform for caching, vector search, and NoSQL databases.

Serve Paperless NGX on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying paperless-ngx.example.com to http://webserver:8000

Add this to your Caddyfile

paperless-ngx.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://webserver:8000
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs <container>
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:8010 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :8010
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 8010:8000 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:8010. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, paperless-ngx can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 8010

Permission denied on volumes

If the logs show "permission denied", the app can't write to its data folder on the host.

  • Fix the ownership: sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/redis/data (and the same for the other mapped folders)

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull docker.io/library/redis:6.0

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect <container> --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Stack won't deploy

Compose stacks fail fast on small mistakes, and Portainer shows the reason just above the editor.

  • YAML only accepts spaces for indentation, a single tab breaks the whole file.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A Compose stack

Paperless NGX is a Compose stack, a set of containers (2 of them) defined in one file and brought up together by Portainer, then started and stopped as a single app.

The services

This stack is built from 2 containers that run side by side. Here's each one, with the image it runs and anything it waits for first:

  • broker runs docker.io/library/redis:6.0
  • webserver runs ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest, starts after broker

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 8010:8000 means it's reachable on port 8010 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. Once it's running, open http://your-server-ip:8010 in a browser. It opens:

  • 8010:8000, likely the web interface

Volumes

A volume is where Paperless NGX keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /data from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/redis/data on the host
  • /usr/src/paperless/data from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/data on the host
  • /usr/src/paperless/media from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/media on the host
  • /usr/src/paperless/export from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/export on the host
  • /usr/src/paperless/consume from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/paperless-ngx/consume on the host

Environment variables

Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. Paperless NGX takes 9 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:

  • PAPERLESS_REDIS, defaults to redis://broker:6379
  • USERMAP_UID, pulled from your own environment
  • USERMAP_GID, pulled from your own environment
  • PAPERLESS_TIME_ZONE, pulled from your own environment
  • PAPERLESS_URL, pulled from your own environment
  • PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY, pulled from your own environment
  • PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE, pulled from your own environment
  • PAPERLESS_ADMIN_USER, pulled from your own environment
  • PAPERLESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD, pulled from your own environment

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts Paperless NGX after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Networking

Portainer puts these services on one shared private network, so they can find each other by name (like broker) while only the ports above are open to you.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set Paperless NGX up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying Paperless NGX is a click rather than a wall of config.