Installing PhotoPrism on Debian

Background

What is PhotoPrism?

PhotoPrism is a self-hosted web application for managing and organising a photo collection. It aims to provide many of the popular features of cloud services like Google Photos.

Why this guide?

The PhotoPrism documentation only covers Docker as an officially supported installation method. However, not everyone can, or wants to, use Docker. The only guide that covers installation without Docker is focused on development, and includes steps that are not necessary when one simply wants to run PhotoPrism.

The purpose of this guide, therefore, is to provide instructions for setting up a usable PhotoPrism installation on Debian. The guide has been written for, and tested on, Debian 11 "Bullseye", but should also work on older versions like Debian 10 "Buster", as well as derivatives like Ubuntu and Raspbian.

DISCLAIMER

This guide is provided in good faith and for informational purposes only. No claims are made or guarantees given that it will work on any particular combination of hardware and software, or that it will be kept up-to-date with new releases of PhotoPrism. You will assume all responsibility for managing your PhotoPrism server, including the prevention of unauthorised access and safeguards against data loss.

Installing PhotoPrism

Prerequisites

If you haven't done so already, ensure your server's packages are up-to-date:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade

Next, a few packages need to be installed, these are mostly various helpers for installing PhotoPrism:

$ sudo apt install -y gcc g++ git gnupg make zip unzip

Note: If running in an environment where you're root by default, like in an LXC container, make sure sudo is installed, it'll be needed in a later step.

Node.js

While Node.js is available in Debian (and Ubuntu) repos, the version there is pretty old. Nodesource provides up-to-date versions. PhotoPrism recommends v18, so install that:

$ wget https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x -O node_setup.sh
$ chmod +x node_setup.sh
$ sudo ./node_setup.sh
$ sudo apt install -y nodejs
$ rm node_setup.sh

Golang

While Golang is available in Debian (and Ubuntu) repos, the version is usually outdated (even in Debian backports). For the most up-to-date version, to keep up with what PhotoPrism uses, Golang needs to be downloaded and installed manually. The latest version as of the writing of this is 1.19.3, but check the website and change the URLs below if necessary:

$ wget https://golang.org/dl/go1.19.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.19.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/go/bin/go /usr/local/bin/go
$ rm go1.19.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz

This downloads and extracts Golang to /usr/local/go (deleting old installation, if it exists), and creates a symlink to the go binary in /usr/local/bin (so it's in the $PATH).

Tensorflow

Tensorflow is an AI library developed by Google. PhotoPrism uses it to classify photos and detect faces. The necessary version (1.15, as of the writing of this) can be downloaded from the PhotoPrism website.

Choose the appropriate Tensorflow build based on whether your CPU supports the AVX or AVX2 instruction sets. You can check by running lscpu | grep -Eo 'avx2?\W'.

If you have a reasonably recent CPU, you'll want the "avx2" version:

$ wget https://dl.photoprism.org/tensorflow/linux/libtensorflow-linux-avx2-1.15.2.tar.gz
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf libtensorflow-linux-avx2-1.15.2.tar.gz
$ sudo ldconfig
$ rm libtensorflow-linux-avx2-1.15.2.tar.gz

For older CPUs, use the "avx" version:

$ wget https://dl.photoprism.org/tensorflow/linux/libtensorflow-linux-avx-1.15.2.tar.gz
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf libtensorflow-linux-avx-1.15.2.tar.gz
$ sudo ldconfig
$ rm libtensorflow-linux-avx-1.15.2.tar.gz

If your CPU supports neither instruction set, use the "cpu" version:

$ wget https://dl.photoprism.org/tensorflow/linux/libtensorflow-linux-cpu-1.15.2.tar.gz
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf libtensorflow-linux-cpu-1.15.2.tar.gz
$ sudo ldconfig
$ rm libtensorflow-linux-cpu-1.15.2.tar.gz

If an unsupported version is chosen, the PhotoPrism service will fail to start with an "Illegal operation" error. To repair, just run the above steps again with the corrected archive path.

See https://dl.photoprism.org/tensorflow for download URLs for other platforms (like ARM).

Download and install PhotoPrism

Create a directory where the compiled PhotoPrism code will be stored:

$ sudo mkdir -p /opt/photoprism/bin

Now download the PhotoPrism source code:

$ git clone https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism.git
$ cd photoprism
$ git checkout release

Then run the following commands to download the various dependencies for Tensorflow, the Node.js front-end and the Golang back-end, and install PhotoPrism in /opt/photoprism:

$ sudo make all
$ sudo ./scripts/build.sh prod /opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism
$ sudo cp -a assets/ /opt/photoprism/assets/

The dependencies step can produce errors when running in shells like ZSH. Ensure you're using Bash if this happens.

Building the front-end can take more than 1 GB of RAM, and the build might crash with Javascript running out of memory. If using a virtual machine, allocate at least 2 GB. Alternatively, you can try limiting Node's memory usage as follows (adjust the number based on available RAM on your system):

$ NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=1024 make all

If you're still having problems, consult the PhotoPrism makefile for the steps that make all executes, and try running them individually to isolate the problem.

Configure PhotoPrism

Instead of running PhotoPrism as root or your own user, it is advisable to create a separate user account for it:

$ sudo useradd --system photoprism

Create a directory where PhotoPrism will store files like metadata, thumbnails, database (if using SQLite) and so on:

$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/photoprism
$ sudo chown photoprism:photoprism /var/lib/photoprism

Go to the newly added directory and create a file for PhotoPrism configuration parameters:

$ cd /var/lib/photoprism
$ sudo nano .env

This opens the file in the Nano text editor. Feel free to use another editor if you have a preference, but this guide will assume Nano.

The full list of configuration options is available here, but you can use the following as a starting point:

# Initial password for the admin user
PHOTOPRISM_AUTH_MODE="password"
PHOTOPRISM_ADMIN_PASSWORD="photoprism"

# PhotoPrism storage directories
PHOTOPRISM_STORAGE_PATH="/var/lib/photoprism"
PHOTOPRISM_ORIGINALS_PATH="/var/lib/photoprism/photos/Originals"
PHOTOPRISM_IMPORT_PATH="/var/lib/photoprism/photos/Import"

# Uncomment below if using MariaDB/MySQL instead of SQLite (the default)
# PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_DRIVER="mysql"
# PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_SERVER="MYSQL_IP_HERE"
# PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_NAME="DB_NAME"
# PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_USER="USER_NAME"
# PHOTOPRISM_DATABASE_PASSWORD="PASSWORD"

Press Ctrl+O and Enter to save, then Ctrl+X to exit Nano. Now enter the following commands:

$ sudo chown photoprism:photoprism .env
$ sudo chmod 640 .env

This ensures that the file cannot be read by other users on the system, as it contains sensitive details.

System service

The last step is setting up a system service so PhotoPrism can run automatically in the background.

Create a file for the service definition:

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/photoprism.service

Add the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=PhotoPrism service
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
User=photoprism
Group=photoprism
WorkingDirectory=/opt/photoprism
EnvironmentFile=/var/lib/photoprism/.env
ExecStart=/opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism up -d
ExecStop=/opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism down

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now run the following commands to start the service and to have it start automatically on every boot:

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start photoprism
$ sudo systemctl enable photoprism

If all went well, you should be able to open http://YOUR-IP-HERE:2342 in a web browser and see the PhotoPrism interface. Log in as "admin" with the password set in the .env file.

Automatic background tasks

It's possible to have PhotoPrism automatically run background tasks, like importing any photos that have been added to the Imports directory, using a cron job.

Create a file for the cron job:

$ sudo nano /etc/cron.d/photoprism

Enter the following contents:

0 * * * * photoprism export $(grep -v ^# /var/lib/photoprism/.env | xargs) && /opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism import >/dev/null 2>&1

This runs the PhotoPrism import command every hour. If you want to run it more (or less) frequently, change the time expression at the beginning accordingly. Use a helper like https://crontab.cronhub.io if needed.

It's also possible to run other commands. For example, if you add photos directly to the Originals directory and just need PhotoPrism to index them, change import to index. Run /opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism to get a full list of commands that can be executed.

For logging, replace /dev/null with the name of a log file (make sure the photoprism user can write to it). This can be helpful for troubleshooting.

Alternative method

It is also possible to use a systemd service and timer to run the background tasks. See this comparison against cron for pros and cons.

Create a file for the service definition:

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/photoprism-bg.service

Add the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=PhotoPrism background tasks
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
User=photoprism
Group=photoprism
WorkingDirectory=/opt/photoprism
EnvironmentFile=/var/lib/photoprism/.env
ExecStart=/opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism import

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Again, change import to whatever command you need to execute.

Since it is a oneshot service, a systemd timer will be used to run it automatically, in this example every hour.

Create a file for the timer definition:

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/photoprism-bg.timer

Add the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=PhotoPrism background tasks

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*:0:0

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

If you want to run the timer more (or less) frequently, change the OnCalendar parameter accordingly. You can use systemd-analyze calendar to verify the syntax.

Run the following commands to enable and start the timer:

$ sudo systemctl enable photoprism-bg.timer
$ sudo systemctl start photoprism-bg.timer

For troubleshooting, run the following command to check the service status:

$ systemctl status photoprism-bg.service

And run the following commands to check the timer status:

$ systemctl status photoprism-bg.timer
$ systemctl list-timers photoprism-bg

Updating PhotoPrism

New versions of PhotoPrism are published to their Github repository: https://github.com/photoprism/photoprism/releases

If a new version is published, the following steps need to be done.

First, update your system:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade

Also check for new Golang version and install manually using the instructions from above.

Then, stop the PhotoPrism service:

$ sudo systemctl stop photoprism

Then, navigate to the PhotoPrism source code directory and pull the latest version from Github:

$ cd photoprism
$ git pull --force

Upgrade dependencies and re-run the build steps from above.

$ sudo make upgrade
$ sudo make all
$ sudo ./scripts/build.sh prod /opt/photoprism/bin/photoprism
$ sudo rm -rf /opt/photoprism/assets/
$ sudo cp -a assets/ /opt/photoprism/assets/
$ sudo chown -R photoprism:photoprism /opt/photoprism

Finally, restart the PhotoPrism service:

$ sudo systemctl start photoprism

Troubleshooting

Run the following command to check the service status:

$ systemctl status photoprism

Also check the PhotoPrism troubleshooting checklists. Some of the information there is Docker-specific, but a lot is useful even with non-Docker setups.

If all else fails, you can try deleting ~/photoprism (where you cloned the source code) and /opt/photoprism (where the built files were copied) and re-installing PhotoPrism. As long as you don't delete /var/lib/photoprism, your data and settings won't be lost.

In some cases you might run into a bug in PhotoPrism that has been fixed but the fix is not yet released. In that case, you can try switching to the "preview" branch (or even the bleeding-edge "develop" branch), although note that this might introduce other issues compared to the stable "release" version.

To switch branches (e.g. to "preview"), go to the directory where you downloaded the PhotoPrism source code and enter the following command:

$ git checkout preview

Then re-run the steps to build and install PhotoPrism.