documentation/docs/installation.md

Installation

Compiling Invidious requires at least 2GB of free RAM (We recommend to have at least 3GB installed). If you have less (e.g on a cheap VPS) you can setup a SWAP file or partition, so the combined amount is >= 3GB.

After installation take a look at the Post-install steps.

Note: Any PaaS or SaaS provider/software (Heroku, YunoHost, Repli...) are unsupported. Use them at your own risk. They WILL cause problems with Invidious and might even suspend your account for "abuse" since Invidious is heavy, bandwidth intensive and technically a proxy (and most providers don't like them). If you use one and want to report an issue, please mention which one you use.

Automated Installation

Invidious-Updater is a self-contained script that can automatically install and update Invidious.

Docker

The Invidious docker image is only available on Quay because, unlike Docker Hub, Quay is Free and Open Source Software. This is reflected in the docker-compose.yml file used in this walk-through.

Ensure Docker Engine and Docker Compose are installed before beginning.

Docker-compose method (production)

This method uses the pre-built Docker image from quay

Note: Currently the repository has to be cloned, this is because the init-invidious-db.sh file and the config/sql directory have to be mounted to the postgres container (See the volumes section in the docker-compose file below). This "problem" will be solved in the future.

git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.git
cd invidious

Edit the docker-compose.yml with this content:

version: "3"
services:

  invidious:
    image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:latest
    # image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:latest-arm64 # ARM64/AArch64 devices
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
    environment:
      # Please read the following file for a comprehensive list of all available
      # configuration options and their associated syntax:
      # https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/blob/master/config/config.example.yml
      INVIDIOUS_CONFIG: |
        db:
          dbname: invidious
          user: kemal
          password: kemal
          host: invidious-db
          port: 5432
        check_tables: true
        # external_port:
        # domain:
        # https_only: false
        # statistics_enabled: false
    healthcheck:
      test: wget -nv --tries=1 --spider http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/v1/comments/jNQXAC9IVRw || exit 1
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 2
    depends_on:
      - invidious-db

  invidious-db:
    image: docker.io/library/postgres:14
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - postgresdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./config/sql:/config/sql
      - ./docker/init-invidious-db.sh:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init-invidious-db.sh
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: invidious
      POSTGRES_USER: kemal
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: kemal
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U $$POSTGRES_USER -d $$POSTGRES_DB"]

volumes:
  postgresdata:

Note: This compose is made for a true "production" setup, where Invidious is behind a reverse proxy. If you prefer to directly access Invidious, replace 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 with 3000:3000 under the ports: section.

The environment variable POSTGRES_USER cannot be changed. The SQL config files that run the initial database migrations are hard-coded with the username kemal.

Docker-compose method (development)

This method builds a Docker image from source

git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.git
cd invidious
docker-compose up

Manual Installation

Linux

Install Crystal

Follow the instructions for your distribution here: https://crystal-lang.org/install/

Install the dependencies

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S base-devel librsvg postgresql

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt install libssl-dev libxml2-dev libyaml-dev libgmp-dev libreadline-dev postgresql librsvg2-bin libsqlite3-dev zlib1g-dev libpcre3-dev libevent-dev

RHEL based and RHEL-like systems (RHEL, Fedora, AlmaLinux, RockyLinux...)

sudo dnf install -y openssl-devel libevent-devel libxml2-devel libyaml-devel gmp-devel readline-devel postgresql librsvg2-devel sqlite-devel zlib-devel gcc

Add an Invidious user and clone the repository

useradd -m invidious
su - invidious
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
exit

Set up PostgresSQL

systemctl enable --now postgresql
sudo -i -u postgres
psql -c "CREATE USER kemal WITH PASSWORD 'kemal';" # Change 'kemal' here to a stronger password, and update `password` in config/config.yml
createdb -O kemal invidious
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/channels.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/channel_videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/users.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/session_ids.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/nonces.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/annotations.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/playlists.sql
psql invidious kemal < /home/invidious/invidious/config/sql/playlist_videos.sql
exit

Set up Invidious

su - invidious
cd invidious
shards install --production
crystal build src/invidious.cr --release
exit

Systemd service

cp /home/invidious/invidious/invidious.service /etc/systemd/system/invidious.service
systemctl enable --now invidious.service

MacOS

# Install dependencies
brew update
brew install shards crystal postgres imagemagick librsvg

# Clone the repository and set up a PostgreSQL database
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
cd invidious
brew services start postgresql
psql -c "CREATE ROLE kemal WITH PASSWORD 'kemal';" # Change 'kemal' here to a stronger password, and update `password` in config/config.yml
createdb -O kemal invidious
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/channels.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/channel_videos.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/users.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/session_ids.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/nonces.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/annotations.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/privacy.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/playlists.sql
psql invidious kemal < config/sql/playlist_videos.sql

# Set up Invidious
shards update && shards install && crystal build src/invidious.cr --release

Post-install configuration:

Detailed configuration available in the configuration guide.

Because of various issues Invidious must be restarted often, at least once a day, ideally every hour.

If you use a reverse proxy, you must configure invidious to properly serve request through it:

https_only: true : if you are serving your instance via https, set it to true

domain: domain.ext: if you are serving your instance via a domain name, set it here

external_port: 443: if you are serving your instance via https, set it to 443

Update Invidious

Updating a Docker install

docker-compose pull && docker-compose up && docker image prune -f

Update a manual install

sudo - invidious
cd invidious
shards update && shards install && crystal build src/invidious.cr --release
exit
systemctl restart invidious.service

Usage:

./invidious

Logrotate configuration

echo "/home/invidious/invidious/invidious.log {
rotate 4
weekly
notifempty
missingok
compress
minsize 1048576
}" | tee /etc/logrotate.d/invidious.logrotate
chmod 0644 /etc/logrotate.d/invidious.logrotate