Prebuilt images are published on Docker Hub as yafnet/yafnet, one tag per database provider. A Docker Compose file for each provider starts the forum together with its database.

• Docker with the Compose plugin (docker compose, Compose v2)
• The yafsrc folder of the repository with the compose files and the docker folder. Run all commands from the yafsrc folder: the compose files mount the database init scripts from ./docker/..., so they only work from there.

1. Open the compose file for your database and change the default password MyPass@word (see Passwords).

2. Start the stack:

   docker compose -f docker-compose-SqlServer.yml up -d

3. Open http://localhost:8001 in your browser. On the first start you are redirected to the installation wizard, which creates the database tables and the admin account.

Taking the SQL Server file as an example:

The forum waits until the database server is healthy and the init container has finished. SQL Server takes about 30 seconds until it is ready, so the forum is not reachable right away.

The MySQL (mariadb, mariadb-init) and PostgreSQL (postgres-db, postgres-init) files are built the same way. The SQLite file only contains the yafnet service.

To change the host port of the forum, edit the ports entry of the yafnet service, e.g. "80:89". Port 8002 exposes the database to the host and can be removed if you don't need it.

All settings from appsettings.json can be overridden with environment variables in the environment section of the yafnet service. Nested keys are separated with a double underscore:

environment:
  - ConnectionStrings__DefaultConnection=...
  - BoardConfiguration__ConnectionProviderName=Microsoft.Data.SqlClient
  - MailConfiguration__Host=smtp.example.com
  - MailConfiguration__Port=587
  - MailConfiguration__UserName=forum@example.com
  - MailConfiguration__Password=secret

A list of all board configuration settings can be found on the BoardConfiguration Settings page.

If you put a reverse proxy (nginx, Traefik, Caddy, ...) in front of the forum, the client address is taken from its X-Forwarded-For header. Proxies in private networks, like another container, are trusted automatically. A proxy or CDN in a public network (e.g. Cloudflare) must be added to TrustedProxies (see Reverse proxy and Cloudflare, also for the https links behind a proxy):

environment:
  - BoardConfiguration__TrustedProxies__0=173.245.48.0/20
  - BoardConfiguration__TrustedProxies__1=103.21.244.0/22

The default password MyPass@word appears in several places of each compose file. Change all of them to the same value:

• SQL Server: MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD of sql-server-db and sql-server-init, the healthcheck command of sql-server-db, and the connection string of yafnet
• MySQL: MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD of mariadb and mariadb-init, and the connection string of yafnet
• PostgreSQL: POSTGRES_PASSWORD of postgres-db, PGPASSWORD of postgres-init, and the connection string of yafnet

The database password is only applied when the database volume is created for the first time. To change it later, change it in the database itself, or remove the volume (this deletes all data).

The forum needs a working SMTP server for registration mails, password resets and notifications. The compose files contain the mail settings as commented-out examples: uncomment them and set MailConfiguration__Host and MailConfiguration__Port (and UserName / Password if the server requires authentication) to your mail server.

The database is stored in a named volume (mssql-data, mysql-data, postgresql-data or sqlite-data), so it survives docker compose down and container updates. With SQLite the database file is /data/yafnet.db in the volume sqlite-data.

docker compose down -v removes the volume and deletes all forum data.

All compose files mount the named volume yaf-backups to /app/App_Data/Backups: the backups of Admin > Database > Backup (the database with the uploads and images) are stored there and survive container updates. With SQL Server the volume is also mounted into sql-server-db (/var/opt/mssql/backup, set as BoardConfiguration__SqlServerBackupFolder), because SQL Server writes the backup file itself; the service sql-server-backup-init runs once and gives SQL Server write access to the volume. See Database Backup.

The volume is on the same server as the forum: download the backups regularly or copy them somewhere else.

# show the logs of the forum
docker compose -f docker-compose-SqlServer.yml logs -f yafnet

# stop the stack (data is kept)
docker compose -f docker-compose-SqlServer.yml down

# update to the latest image
docker compose -f docker-compose-SqlServer.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose-SqlServer.yml up -d

Each provider has its own Dockerfile in the yafsrc/docker folder (docker/yaf-sqlserver, docker/yaf-mysql, docker/yaf-postgresql, docker/yaf-sqlite). The build context is the yafsrc folder:

docker build -f docker/yaf-sqlserver/Dockerfile -t yafnet:sqlserver .

To use your own image, replace the image of the yafnet service in the compose file with your tag.

The docker-compose-*-test.yml files are used by the UI tests (DockerComposeFixture). They build the image from the local source instead of pulling it, send mails to a test SMTP server on the host (host.docker.internal:2525) and raise the rate limit, because all test requests come from one IP address. They can also be used to try out local changes:

docker compose -f docker-compose-SqlServer-test.yml up --build -d

Don't use them for a real forum.