The Appsmith Docker image is built with all the components required for it to run, within a single Docker container. Files in this directory make up for the scripts and template files needed for building the image.
You may choose to use the Appsmith cloud instance (at [app.appsmith.com](https://app.appsmith.com)) or start your own using this image.
## Appsmith Cloud
The fastest way to get started with appsmith is using our cloud-hosted version. It's as easy as
1. [Create an Account](https://app.appsmith.com/user/signup)
2. [Docs on Building a UI](https://docs.appsmith.com/core-concepts/dynamic-ui)
## Self Host
The following subsections describe how you can get started with _your own_ instance of Appsmith.
### 1. Prerequisites
Ensure `docker` and `docker-compose` are installed and available for starting containers:
You may verify the installation by running `docker --version` and `docker-compose --version`. The output should roughly be something like below:
```sh
$ docker --version
Docker version 20.10.7, build f0df350
$ docker-compose --version
docker-compose version 1.29.2, build 5becea4c
```
### 2. Docker compose configuration
Create a folder called `appsmith` (or some other name that you like), which will serve as our installation folder. Inside this folder, create a `docker-compose.yml` file and copy the following content into it:
After saving this file, `cd` to the folder that contains this file and run the following command to start Appsmith:
```sh
docker-compose up -d
```
This command may take a few minutes to download the docker image and initialize the application. Appsmith should soon be available at <http://localhost>.
You can check if application is running correctly by running `docker ps` or `docker-compose ps` (running `docker-compose` will require you to be in the directory containing the `docker-compose.yml` file to work).
```sh
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
3b8f2c9638d0 appsmith/appsmith "/opt/appsmith/entrypoint.sh" 17 minutes ago Up 17 minutes 0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp appsmith
```
You can also use the Supervisord UI to monitor and manage the different processes _inside_ the container. This is discussed [further below](#supervisord).
## Custom Domain
To make Appsmith available on a custom domain, please update your domain's DNS records to point to the instance running Appsmith. Most domain registrars / DNS-providers have documentation on how you can do this yourself.
In our container, we support to generate a free SSL certificate If you have your owned certificate, please follow these steps to use it inside the container.
- Then, copy these files into the sub-directory `<mounting-directory>/ssl/` (*Note: Please change `<mounting-directory>` by the mounting volume directory in the `docker-compose.yml`. Default is `./stacks`*)
- Restart the container using `docker restart appsmith`
The container will check the certificate files in the folder `<mounting-directory>/ssl` and use them if they are existed.
*Note: In case of the certificate files have different name from `fullchain.pem` and `privkey.pem`, it will be considered as missing custom certificate and auto-provisioning the certificate by Let's Encrypt*
The image includes an `appsmithctl` command to help with the management and maintenance of your instance. The following subsections describe what's available.
### Export database
The following command can be used to take a backup dump of Appsmith's database. This can be restored onto another instance using the import command (discussed below) to restore all data.
Before running this, ensure you are in the directory where `docker-compose.yml` is located.
The output file will be stored in the container directory `/appsmith-stacks/data/backup/appsmith-data.archive`. Thanks to the volume configuration in the `docker-compose.yml` file, it should be available on your host machine at `./stacks/data/backup/appsmith-data.archive`.
If your volume configuration is different or unavailable, you can use the following command to copy the archive file to your host disk:
Note that you may want to save the `docker.env` file in addition to this archive file, if you intend to be able to reproduce this environment elsewhere, or in case of a disaster. This file can be copied out of the container with the following command:
Note that when you restore, you may also want to copy a `docker.env` from the original instance into this one. You can use the following command to do this (assuming you are in the installation folder and `docker.env` exists in the same folder):
To migrate a running container to a new server or other machine, you can use the following `migrate` command and replace the `<user>` and `<new-server-ip-address>` by the user and IP address of the destination server or machine.
This command will migrate all data and configuration of running container on source machine to destination machine and start a new container on destination machine.
The container runs multiple processes, including the Appsmith server, Nginx, MongoDB etc., inside a single Docker container. These processes are started and managed by [supervisord](http://supervisord.org/).
Supervisord comes with a web interface for managing the various processes, available at <http://localhost/supervisor/>, as well as a command line interface towards the same goal.
The command line interface can also be used to perform operations like restarting the Appsmith server, or restarting Nginx etc. For example, the following command (run in the installation folder) can be used to get a status of all running processes:
```sh
docker-compose exec appsmith-ce supervisorctl status
```
Or to view the last few lines of stderr output of one of the processes:
To learn more, please refer to [Supervisor's documentation](http://supervisord.org/running.html#supervisorctl-actions) on what actions are available to be performed by the command line interface.
If you encounter any errors during this process, please reach out to [**support@appsmith.com**](mailto:support@appsmith.com) or join our [Discord Server](https://discord.com/invite/rBTTVJp) and reach out on the #support channel.