Deploy & configure

Try it first

Not ready to deploy? Open the live demo and sign in with demo / demo@1234 to try every feature. The demo is public and reset from time to time, so please don’t write anything real there.

Docker (recommended)

The official image songtianlun/diarum is built for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64, so it runs on a Raspberry Pi, Synology, QNAP and other ARM devices too.

docker run -d \
  --name diarum \
  -p 8090:8090 \
  -v /path/to/your/data:/app/data \
  -e TZ=Europe/London \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  songtianlun/diarum:latest

Then open http://your-server:8090.

Always mount the data directory. /app/data holds the database, images, audit logs — everything. Without a volume, removing the container removes your diary.

Tags: latest always points at the newest release, and every release also has its own tag (such as v0.9.9) when you want to pin a version.

Docker Compose

Create docker-compose.yml:

services:
  diarum:
    image: songtianlun/diarum:latest
    container_name: diarum
    ports:
      - "8090:8090"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
    environment:
      - DIARUM_DATA_PATH=/app/data
      - TZ=Europe/London
    restart: unless-stopped

Start it:

docker compose up -d

First run

1. Open the page and register. The first account becomes the administrator; everyone after it is a regular user;
2. After signing in you land on today’s entry — start writing;
3. Visit Settings for language and visual style, the AI assistant, image storage, automatic backups, the API and MCP;
4. Administrators can open /admin for the system overview, user management, audit log archiving and visitor statistics.

HTTPS and a domain

Put Diarum behind a reverse proxy with HTTPS. Installing the PWA and clipboard access need a secure context, and MCP clients work best with an HTTPS URL.

Caddy (automatic certificates):

diary.example.com {
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8090
}

Nginx:

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name diary.example.com;
    # ssl_certificate / ssl_certificate_key ...

    client_max_body_size 200m;   # large photos, Live Photo videos and import archives

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8090;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_buffering off;     # the AI assistant streams its replies
    }
}

Configuration

Everything else — AI, image storage, backups, API, auditing — is configured in the web interface and stored per user. No config files to edit.

What is in the data directory

data/
├── diarum.db              # main SQLite database: users, entries, versions, settings, AI conversations…
├── storage/               # locally stored images and their thumbnails
├── logs/system-audit/     # system audit log, one JSON Lines file per day
└── visits/visits.db       # visitor statistics (when enabled), a separate SQLite file

Moving or cold backups: stop the server and copy the whole directory. For everyday backups, turn on automatic backups to S3 in Settings → Data management.

When upgrading from an old release, a legacy data.db without a diarum.db is migrated automatically at startup, leaving the old file untouched.

Upgrading

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d
# or
docker pull songtianlun/diarum:latest && docker rm -f diarum && docker run ... (as above)

The database schema migrates itself on startup. Taking a backup first is a good habit. See Releases for what changed in each version.

Managing users from the command line

diarum users list                    # users and roles
diarum users list --json
diarum users set-role alice admin    # <user>: username, email or ID; <role>: user or admin

# Inside Docker
docker exec -it diarum /app/diarum users list
docker exec -it diarum /app/diarum users set-role alice admin

This works while the server is running; role changes apply immediately and are audited. Handy if you forget which account is the admin.

Building from source

You need Go 1.23+ and Node.js 20+:

git clone https://github.com/songtianlun/diarum.git
cd diarum
make build          # builds the frontend, then embeds it in the Go binary
./diarum serve      # listens on :8090, stores data in ./diarum_data

For development, make dev-frontend and make dev-backend run each side, and make test runs the tests.

Getting help

• Open an issue or idea on GitHub Issues.