immich-app podman + quadlet deployment

⚠️ Curently supported immich version: v1.118.1 ⚠️

This is a set of unit files to deploy immich through the podman-quadlet systemd generator

See the documentation This is adapted from immich provided docker-compose file, this will create a podman pod hosting all thc containers.

Overview

This setup consist in:

• immich.pod file defining a pod that will host all the containers.
• immich-server.image defining the immich version.
• several immich-*.container files defining the containers, volumes etc..

The .container files are translated into systemd units that create the containers.

Note how the immich-server.container have an install target on default.target which makes it start on boot.

How do I deploy it ?

Rename env.example to immich.env. Populate the values as needed.

rootful podman

Copy theses files into /etc/containers/systemd then reload systemd.

It can be a subdirectory. e.g :

sudo cp -r . /etc/containers/systemd/immich
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

rootless podman

Create a user that will run immich containers. The containers will act as this user on the host:

• This user will be used when enforcing file permissions in the mounted volumes.
• When immich creates files in the mounted volumes, they will be owned by this user on the host.

useradd -r -m -d /var/lib/immich immich

The containers and named volumes will be stored in /var/lib/immich.

Configure subuid and subgid for podman to be able to run as this user:

cat >> /etc/subuid <<EOF
immich:2000000:1000000
EOF

cat >> /etc/subgid <<EOF
immich:2000000:1000000
EOF

Copy these files into the user's containers/systemd directory:

sudo -u immich mkdir -p ~immich/.config/containers/systemd/immich
sudo -u immich cp -v *.image *.container *.pod immich.env ~immich/.config/containers/systemd/immich/

Start the user session, make it persistent and start the pod:

systemctl start user@$(id -u immich)
loginctl enable-linger immich
systemctl --user -M immich@.host start immich-pod.service

Watch journalctl to see if the containers start successfully - the first start can fail if downloading the images takes more than the default startup timeout:

journalctl -f

The containers should start on the next boot automatically.

Database backup

The database_backup folder suggests a way to dump the database regularly. Make sure to add a volume mount to the database container and bind it to /var/db_backup

As is, the unit will create gziped SQL dumps named with the date of creation: YYYYMMDD.

To enable it, place the files in /etc/systemd/system then enable the timer: systemctl enable --now immich-database-backup.timer.

TODO

• write a makefile or a justfile that insert the variables in the unit files maybe ? Right now it requires some copy and pasting.
• Contribute it upstream to immich : no longer a goal, they stated they are not interested.