We recommend the public Overview server. But we also support users who want to run Overview on their own machines. You'll want to do this if you need greater security, larger document sets, or custom modifications.
You'll need to use a command line to follow these instructions. Don't worry: we'll guide you carefully. Copy/paste each command, and all should be fine. Any errors? File an issue on GitHub.
Please note that Overview is licensed under AGPL 3.0. If you want to modify the code to run a custom server, please contact info@overviewdocs.com for a license. We can also do custom development work for you.
Note: On Windows and Mac docker 1.9.1 will not work due to an ongoing docker bug. Type docker -v to see which version you have. The latest version 1.10.1 may fix the problem, if not try 1.9.0. Linux install should work fine on any version.
We've tested in Ubuntu Linux 15.10 (Vivid); other distributions should work just as well.
- Open the "Terminal" program.
- Install dependencies. On Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install git docker - Install
docker-compose. You'll need version 1.4 or higher. On Ubuntu:sudo pip install docker-compose - Make yourself a member of the
dockergroup. Runsudo usermod -a -G docker $USERand then log out (of your entire desktop environment) and log back in. - Copy/paste this command into the terminal and press Enter:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/overview/overview-local/master/install-from-scratch.sh | sh
If all goes well, you'll see screen after screen of progress bars. Grab a coffee; in half an hour or so, return to see Overview's URL on the screen. (It's probably http://172.17.42.1:9000/.)
- Install Docker, from https://www.docker.com/docker-toolbox.
- Install
git, from https://git-scm.com/downloads. - Open the Docker Quick Start Terminal. (We'll call this "the terminal" from now on.)
- Give Overview more resources (see below)
- Copy/paste this command into the terminal and press Enter:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/overview/overview-local/master/install-from-scratch.sh | sh
If all goes well, you'll see screen after screen of progress bars. Grab a coffee; in half an hour or so, return to see Overview's URL on the screen. (It's probably http://192.168.99.100:9000/.)
- Install Docker, from https://www.docker.com/docker-toolbox.
- Open the Docker Quick Start Terminal. (We'll call this "the terminal" from now on.)
- Give Overview more resources (see below)
- Copy/paste this command into the terminal and press Enter:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/overview/overview-local/master/install-from-scratch.sh | sh
If all goes well, you'll see screen after screen of progress bars. Grab a coffee; in half an hour or so, return to see Overview's URL on the screen. (It's probably http://192.168.99.100:9000/.)
Linux users should skip this section, but Windows and Mac users probably need it.
On OS X and Windows, Overview runs in Docker's "virtual machine". The virtual machine restricts the amount of memory and number of processors Overview can use.
We recommend you give Overview at least 3GB of memory; the more, the faster it will be.
Here's how to give the Docker virtual machine more memory:
- Start the Docker Quick Start Terminal application.
- Stop the virtual machine:
docker-machine stop default - Set virtual machine memory to 3Gb.
- OS X:
VBoxManage modifyvm default --memory 4096 - Windows:
/c/Program\ Files/Oracle/VirtualBox/VBoxManage modifyvm default --memory 4096
- Restart the virtual machine:
docker-machine start default
You don't need to use the command line. When you installed Docker, it gave you a "VirtualBox" icon. Open that program to change more settings. For instance, if you assign Overview two processors, file imports will finish much sooner.
When you want to start Overview, run ~/overview-local/start in a terminal.That curl | sh command you used to install Overview stored some files on your computer to make future startups much quicker.
On Windows and Mac, if you see this error
ERROR: Couldn't connect to Docker daemon - you might need to run `docker-machine start default`.
it means the Docker Virtual Machine got shut down, so you need to start it again by running these commands
docker-machine start default
eval "$(docker-machine env default)"
then run start again.
Overview uses lots of memory, and that can make your computer a bit sluggish.
Open a terminal and run ~/overview-local/stop to shut it down.
Overview-local runs by default in single user mode, meaning there is only one user and no logins. To enable logins and multiple users, add the following line to ~/overview-local/config/overview.env
OVERVIEW_MULTI_USER=true
The default user and password is admin@overviewdocs.com. You should change the password immediately. You can create new user accounts through the Admin menu when logged in. The registration form on the front page won't do anything unless you configure an SMTP server.
See also configuration below.
Does Overview have some new features you want? Open a terminal and do this:
~/overview-local/stop~/overview-local/update~/overview-local/start
You can copy all Overview's data into a single file.
Run ~/overview-local/backup backup.tar.gz and then store backup.tar.gz
somewhere safe.
If you're in the midst of using Overview when you run this, the backup may be
inconsistent. (We just use tar to back up a PostgreSQL directory.) To be safe,
you should stop Overview before you back it up.
The first time you run the backup, you'll get a lot of messages about pulling Docker images. That'll just happen the one time; every other invocation will be silent.
After you've installed Overview and tested that it works, you can wipe all its data and replace it with a backup's data.
Run ~/overview-local/restore-from-backup backup.tar.gz, where backup.tar.gz
is your backup file.
This command will stop Overview itself.
Overview backups are forward-compatible with newer versions of Overview for one
year. In other words: if you keep Overview up to date (by running update), you
will be able to restore from any backup that is less than one year old. (Don't
take that to mean a two-year-old backup is worthless. You can restore and
re-backup your data with interim versions of Overview to bring it up to date. We
haven't written instructions for this task.)
On Windows and Mac OS X, Overview is running within a "virtual machine". You can create "snapshots" of the machine's state and restore those snapshots to bring Overview back to the way it was at any moment in time.
We recommend you take backups while Overview is running.
To back up, take a snapshot of the virtual machine:
- Open the "Oracle VM VirtualBox" program that came with Docker.
- Click the "default" machine on the left. (If the machine is not there, or if it isn't "Running", start Overview and then come back here.)
- Click the "snapshots" button at the right of the toolbar.
- Click the "Take a snapshot" button.
- Enter a name, and click "OK".
- Close Oracle VM VirtualBox whenever you wish.
To restore, spin up the virtual machine from its snapshot:
- Open the "Oracle VM VirtualBox" program that came with Docker.
- Click the "default" machine.
- If the machine isn't "Powered Off", power it off: in the toolbar, click "Machine" -> "Close" -> "Power Off".
- Click the "snapshots" button at the right of the toolbar.
- Click the snapshot you saved earlier.
- Click the "Restore selected snapshot" button. You'll be prompted to create another snapshot, which you may opt for; either way, click "Restore".
- Close Oracle VM VirtualBox whenever you wish.
- In your console, run
docker-machine start default
If you want Overview gone forever, open a terminal and run these commands:
~/overview-local/stop # stop Overview
rm -rf ~/overview-local # remove Overview-related commands
docker rm -v overview-blob-storage # delete PDFs and uploaded files
docker rm -v overview-database-data # delete database
docker rm -v overview-searchindex-data # delete search index
docker rmi $(docker images -f dangling=true -q) # free disk space
If Overview isn't running correctly, we'd love for you to file an issue on our
Issues page. Please open a terminal and run ~/overview-local/dump-logs as
well; show us those logs so we'll know what Overview was thinking when it failed
you.
If you're curious, you can run ~/overview-local/tail-logs and watch Overview's
log messages as they appear, while you use Overview in a browser window.
We set default options in overview-local/config/overview.defaults.env.
DO NOT EDIT overview.defaults.env. Instead, copy/paste the variables you
want to edit into overview-local/config/overview.env alongside it, and edit
there.
Configuration options are documented here
This can happen if you are running a server that is accessible by other machines. Overview gets confused about the externally reachable address of the plugin servers. To fix this, set the OVERVIEW_ADDRESS environment variable before starting the server, like this:
export OVERVIEW_ADDRESS=52.87.230.123
./start
Note that plugins communicate with the server on ports 3000-3100 (defined here) so adjust your firewall accordingly.
Also, only plugin views created after this change will work. Add a new view or re-upload your documents to get working plugins.
Did you try editing overview.defaults.env (or any other file)? That would
break Overview in a future version, and it's unnecessary. Copy the contents
of overview.defaults.env into overview.env, then run git reset --hard.
If that doesn't solve your problem, please add an issue to this project.
There's a bug in Docker v1.9.1, only on Windows and Mac OS X. We've documented more at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/overview-dev/_dEE10njjCk/rVyl6GZkAAAJ.
We are aware of this issue: it affects lots of projects that use our technology. We know of no workaround at present. Use any other web browser -- even Internet Explorer, which also comes pre-installed on your Windows computer -- and Overview will work fine.