How To Install Immich on openSUSE

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Immich on openSUSE. In today’s digital age, managing and backing up our ever-growing collection of photos and videos has become a crucial task. While cloud-based solutions offer convenience, they often come with privacy concerns and storage limitations. This is where Immich comes in – a self-hosted, open-source photo and video backup solution that puts you in control of your data.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Immich self-hosted photo and video on openSUSE.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: openSUSE (Leap or Tumbleweed)
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• You will need access to the terminal to execute commands. openSUSE provides the Terminal application for this purpose. It can be found in your Applications menu.
• You’ll need an active internet connection.
• You’ll need administrative (root) access or a user account with sudo privileges.

Install Immich on openSUSE

Step 1. Update System Packages.

To ensure a smooth installation process, it’s essential to update your openSUSE system packages to their latest versions. Open a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper update

The zypper refresh command refreshes the repository cache, while zypper update upgrades all installed packages to their latest available versions. This process may take a few minutes, depending on the number of updates available and your internet connection speed.

Step 2. Installing Docker.

With your system packages updated, you can now proceed to install Docker. To do this, run the following command:

sudo zypper install docker

This command will install the Docker package and its dependencies on your openSUSE system. Once the installation is complete, you’ll need to start and enable the Docker service to ensure it runs automatically on system startup:

sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

To verify that Docker is installed correctly, run the following command:

sudo docker run hello-world

By default, only the root user can execute Docker commands. To allow non-root users to run Docker commands, you’ll need to add your user to the “docker” group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

The next step is to install Docker Compose, a tool that simplifies the process of defining and running multi-container Docker applications. To install Docker Compose on openSUSE, run the following command:

sudo zypper install docker-compose

Once the installation is complete, verify that Docker Compose is installed correctly by checking its version:

docker-compose --version

Step 3. Installing Immich on openSUSE.

To deploy Immich using Docker Compose, you’ll need to download the pre-configured Docker Compose file from the official Immich repository on GitHub. First, create a new directory for Immich and navigate to it:

mkdir immich && cd immich

Next, download the Docker Compose file using the following command:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/immich-app/immich/main/docker/docker-compose.yml

In the next step, we’ll customize the Immich settings to match your specific requirements, such as the upload location and server URLs, ensuring that your self-hosted photo and video backup solution is tailored to your needs.

Before deploying Immich, you’ll need to configure its settings to match your specific requirements. Open the docker-compose.yml file in a text editor:

nano docker-compose.yml

Inside the file, you’ll find several environment variables that you can customize. Here are some of the most important ones:

• IMMICH_WEB_URL: The URL at which the Immich web interface will be accessible. Replace http://localhost:3000 with the domain or IP address where you plan to host Immich.
• IMMICH_MACHINE_LEARNING_URL: The URL for the machine learning service. If you’re running Immich on a single machine, you can leave this as http://immich-machine-learning:3003.
• IMMICH_SERVER_URL: The URL for the Immich server. If you’re running Immich on a single machine, you can leave this as http://immich-server:3001.
• IMMICH_WEB_UPLOAD_LIMIT: The maximum file size allowed for uploads. By default, this is set to 4096MB (4 GB). Adjust this value according to your needs.

In addition to these settings, you may also want to customize the database configuration, such as the database name, username, and password. Look for the following lines in the docker-compose.yml file:

- DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich
- DB_USERNAME=postgres
- DB_PASSWORD=postgres

Replace the default values with your desired database name, username, and a strong password.

With the Immich settings configured, you can now start the Immich services using Docker Compose. Run the following command in the directory containing the docker-compose.yml file:

sudo docker-compose up -d

Docker Compose will now download the required images and start the containers for each service defined in the docker-compose.yml file. This process may take a few minutes, depending on your internet connection speed.

To monitor the progress of the services starting up, you can use the following command:

sudo docker-compose logs -f

Once all the services are up and running, you can verify their status using the following command:

sudo docker-compose ps

This command will display a list of the running containers, along with their current state and any exposed ports.

Step 4. Accessing Immich Web Interface.

To access the Immich web interface, open a web browser and enter the URL you specified in the IMMICH_WEB_URL setting during the configuration step. For example, if you set it to http://localhost:3000, navigate to that address in your browser.

On your first visit to the Immich web interface, you’ll be prompted to create an admin user account. Fill in the required information, such as your email address and a strong password, and click “Create Admin User.”

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Immich. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the  Immich self-hosted media file on your openSUSE system. For additional or useful information, we recommend you check the official Immich website.