immich-app podman + quadlet deployment

⚠️ Curently supported immich version: v1.108.0 ⚠️

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..
Systemd activation socket, immich-proxy.socket, this provides a way to access immich from outside the pod. Otherwise all the containers in this setup have no network access.

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. Copy the .socket file to /etc/systemd/system.

It can be a subdirectory. e.g :

sudo cp -r . /etc/containers/systemd/immich
sudo cp immich-proxy.socket /etc/systemd/system
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 immich-proxy.socket to ~immich/.config/systemd/user.

Copy the remaining 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/
sudo -u immich mkdir -p ~immich/.config/systemd/user
sudo -u immich cp -v *.image *.socket ~immich/.config/systemd/user/

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.