anything-llm/docker/HOW_TO_USE_DOCKER.md

How to use Dockerized Anything LLM

Use the Dockerized version of AnythingLLM for a much faster and complete startup of AnythingLLM.

Requirements

• Install Docker on your computer or machine.

Recommend way to run dockerized AnythingLLM!

Important

If you are running another service on localhost like Chroma, LocalAi, or LMStudio you will need to use http://host.docker.internal:xxxx to access the service from within the docker container using AnythingLLM as localhost:xxxx will not resolve for the host system. eg: Chroma host URL running on localhost:8000 on host machine needs to be http://host.docker.internal:8000 when used in AnythingLLM.

Tip

It is best to mount the containers storage volume to a folder on your host machine so that you can pull in future updates without deleting your existing data!

docker pull mintplexlabs/anythingllm:master

export STORAGE_LOCATION="/var/lib/anythingllm" && \
mkdir -p $STORAGE_LOCATION && \
touch "$STORAGE_LOCATION/.env" && \
docker run -d -p 3001:3001 \
-v ${STORAGE_LOCATION}:/app/server/storage \
-v ${STORAGE_LOCATION}/.env:/app/server/.env \
-e STORAGE_DIR="/app/server/storage" \
mintplexlabs/anythingllm:master

Go to http://localhost:3001 and you are now using AnythingLLM! All your data and progress will persist between container rebuilds or pulls from Docker Hub.

Build locally from source

• git clone this repo and cd anything-llm to get to the root directory.
• touch server/storage/anythingllm.db to create empty SQLite DB file.
• cd docker/
• cp .env.example .env you must do this before building
• docker-compose up -d --build to build the image - this will take a few moments.

Your docker host will show the image as online once the build process is completed. This will build the app to http://localhost:3001.

How to use the user interface

• To access the full application, visit http://localhost:3001 in your browser.

How to add files to my system using the standalone scripts

• Upload files from the UI in your Workspace settings

• To run the collector scripts to grab external data (articles, URLs, etc.)

  • docker exec -it --workdir=/app/collector anything-llm python main.py

• To run the collector watch script to process files from the hotdir

  • docker exec -it --workdir=/app/collector anything-llm python watch.py
  • Upload compliant files to ./collector/hotdir and they will be processed and made available in the UI.

About UID and GID in the ENV

• The UID and GID are set to 1000 by default. This is the default user in the Docker container and on most host operating systems. If there is a mismatch between your host user UID and GID and what is set in the .env file, you may experience permission issues.

⚠️ Vector DB support ⚠️

Out of the box, all vector databases are supported. Any vector databases requiring special configuration are listed below.

Using local ChromaDB with Dockerized AnythingLLM

• Ensure in your ./docker/.env file that you have

#./docker/.env
...other configs

VECTOR_DB="chroma"
CHROMA_ENDPOINT='http://host.docker.internal:8000' # Allow docker to look on host port, not container.
# CHROMA_API_HEADER="X-Api-Key" // If you have an Auth middleware on your instance.
# CHROMA_API_KEY="sk-123abc"

...other configs

Common questions and fixes

API is not working, cannot login, LLM is "offline"?

You are likely running the docker container on a remote machine like EC2 or some other instance where the reachable URL is not http://localhost:3001 and instead is something like http://193.xx.xx.xx:3001 - in this case all you need to do is add the following to your frontend/.env.production before running docker-compose up -d --build

# frontend/.env.production
GENERATE_SOURCEMAP=false
VITE_API_BASE="http://<YOUR_REACHABLE_IP_ADDRESS>:3001/api"

For example, if the docker instance is available on 192.186.1.222 your VITE_API_BASE would look like VITE_API_BASE="http://192.186.1.222:3001/api" in frontend/.env.production.

Still not working?

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