searxng-docker

Create a new SearXNG instance in five minutes using Docker

What is included ?

Name	Description	Docker image	Dockerfile
Caddy	Reverse proxy (create a LetsEncrypt certificate automatically)	docker.io/library/caddy:2-alpine	Dockerfile
SearXNG	SearXNG by itself	docker.io/searxng/searxng:latest	Dockerfile
Valkey	In-memory database	docker.io/valkey/valkey:7-alpine	Dockerfile

How to use it

• Install docker
• Get searxng-docker

  cd /usr/local
  git clone https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker.git
  cd searxng-docker
  

• Edit the .env file to set the hostname and an email
• Generate the secret key sed -i "s|ultrasecretkey|$(openssl rand -hex 32)|g" searxng/settings.yml
• Edit the searxng/settings.yml file according to your need
• Check everything is working: docker compose up
• Run SearXNG in the background: docker compose up -d

[!WARNING]
If you use an older version of docker desktop (< 3.6.0), you may have to install Docker Compose v1. Accordingly, you should modify the commands in this documentation to suit Docker Compose v1. For instance, change 'docker compose up' to 'docker-compose up'.

Install the docker-compose plugin (be sure that docker-compose version is at least 1.9.0)

[!NOTE]
Windows users can use the following powershell script to generate the secret key:

$randomBytes = New-Object byte[] 32
(New-Object Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider).GetBytes($randomBytes)
$secretKey = -join ($randomBytes | ForEach-Object { "{0:x2}" -f $_ })
(Get-Content searxng/settings.yml) -replace 'ultrasecretkey', $secretKey | Set-Content searxng/settings.yml

[!NOTE]
On the first run, you must remove cap_drop: - ALL from the docker-compose.yaml file for the searxng service to successfully create /etc/searxng/uwsgi.ini. This is necessary because the cap_drop: - ALL directive removes all capabilities, including those required for the creation of the uwsgi.ini file.

How to access the logs

To access the logs from all the containers use: docker compose logs -f.

To access the logs of one specific container:

• Caddy: docker compose logs -f caddy
• SearXNG: docker compose logs -f searxng
• Valkey: docker compose logs -f redis

Start SearXNG with systemd

You can skip this step if you don't use systemd.

• cp searxng-docker.service.template searxng-docker.service
• edit the content of WorkingDirectory in the searxng-docker.service file (only if the installation path is different from /usr/local/searxng-docker)
• Install the systemd unit:

  systemctl enable $(pwd)/searxng-docker.service
  systemctl start searxng-docker.service
  

Note on the image proxy feature

The SearXNG image proxy is activated by default.

The default Content-Security-Policy allow the browser to access to ${SEARXNG_HOSTNAME} and https://*.tile.openstreetmap.org;.

If some users want to disable the image proxy, you have to modify ./Caddyfile. Replace the img-src 'self' data: https://*.tile.openstreetmap.org; by img-src * data:;.

Multi Architecture Docker images

Supported architecture:

• amd64
• arm64
• arm/v7

How to update ?

To update the SearXNG stack:

git pull
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Or the old way (with the old docker-compose version):

git pull
docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d