My Overconfidence Killed Me and My Immich Installation

Everything was good, great in fact. Everything was working, but my OCD weren’t okay with how a few services were set-up, so I cleaned up my yaml, commented my docker compose and felt cushty… right up until it was time to fix Immich.

I have minor beef with Immich and basically any larger project and the way they go about their Docker Compose. Basically I feel they make the assumption that they’re the only thing running.

^Disclaimer: I fully accept this is all just me being too stupid and not the Immich development team.

So first things first, let’s rename database to immich-database, redis to immich-redis and most importantly, let’s give it a port that’s not the default postgres port that everyone wants to use. Easy right? Nope.

First Immich said it couldn’t find the database, so I went in and added the IP as the DB_URL to the .env. But that didn’t really help, so I went back to the Docker Compose and added the path to the references to the env.

Second issue I stumble upon, is that despite the port being available as DB_PORT Immich decided it was a suggestion and not an instruction. No worries, I edit the database URL to include the port.

Okay, I’m on the home stretch now right. I mean this was working before I decided to mess around with it in the name of scalability or whatever I thought was genius at the time… except

[Nest] 7  - 04/05/2024, 6:10:23 PM   ERROR [ExceptionHandler] no PostgreSQL user name specified in startup packet

What does that even mean? Why won’t you work? So I do a web search and everything is saying that docker probably isn’t reading the username from the env file or the Docker Compose. I try adding single quotes and no joy, double quotes, no joy. I have no idea where I’ve gone wrong. I feel like my beautiful simple Docker Compose now looks like Frankenstein’s Monster. Help 🙏

ENV

# You can find documentation for all the supported env variables at https://immich.app/docs/install/environment-variables

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
#UPLOAD_LOCATION=immichlibrary

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v1.71.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=release

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
DB_PASSWORD="RANDOMLIES"
DB_URL=http://192.168.0.89:8765
DB_PORT=8765

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_HOSTNAME=immich_postgres
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

REDIS_HOSTNAME=immich_redis

Docker Compose

version: "3.8"

#
# WARNING: Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.
#

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    command: [ "start.sh", "immich" ]
    volumes:
      #- ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - immichlibrary:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - /opt/immich/.env
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
    ports:
      - 2283:3001
    depends_on:
      - immich-redis
      - immich-database
    restart: always

  immich-microservices:
    container_name: immich_microservices
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends:
    #   file: hwaccel.yml
    #   service: hwaccel
    command: [ "start.sh", "microservices" ]
    volumes:
      #- ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - immichlibrary:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - /opt/immich/.env
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
    depends_on:
      - immich-redis
      - immich-database
    restart: always

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - /opt/immich/.env
    restart: always

  immich-redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: redis:6.2-alpine@sha256:c5a607fb6e1bb15d32bbcf14db22787d19e428d59e31a5da67511b49bb0f1ccc
    restart: always

  immich-database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg14-v0.2.0@sha256:90724186f0a3517cf6914295b5ab410db9ce23190a2d9d0b9dd6463e3fa298f0
    env_file:
      - /opt/immich/.env
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
    ports:
      - 8765:5432
    volumes:
      - /opt/immich/postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: always

volumes:
  model-cache:
    driver_opts:
      type: "nfs"
      o: "addr=192.168.0.245,nolock,soft,rw"
      device: ":/mnt/Shared Pictures/.Immich/cache"
  immichlibrary:
    driver_opts:
      type: "nfs"
      o: "addr=192.168.0.245,nolock,soft,rw"
      device: ":/mnt/Shared Pictures/.Immich"

Even if you read this and don’t feel you can help or have nothing to add, thanks for sharing your time with me 🥹