Start Papermerge in 2 minutes with Portainer

In this article I will show you how you can quickly start latest development version of Papermerge using Portainer. Please keep in mind that latest development version of Papermerge is still an early alpha – which means that it is feature incomplete and very buggy – it is definitely not ready for production. Even though it is in alpha stage, you can already clearly see the direction towards which is it moving – like utilitarian part of dual panel mode, download document with OCR text layer and so on.

Step 1 – Update /etc/hosts File

First of all make sure you add papermerge.local entry to your /etc/hosts file. The point of this is that you will be able to access your Papermerge local instance by pointing your browser to http://papermege.local. Obviously you can use another url (e.g. papermerge.loca.dev), but for that you will need to update change little bit docker compose file (hint: in docker compose file search and replace string papermerge.local with papermerge.loca.dev)

Step 2 – Add Stack

In Portainer click on ‘Stacks’ tab and then on ‘Add stack’ as illustrated in picture below:

Add stack button

Step 3 – Fill in repository details

Fill in Name field (e.g. papermerge), select git Repository for Build method. Set following values for Repository URL and Compose path:

  1. Repository URL with https://github.com/papermerge/papermerge-core
  2. Compose path: docker/docker-compose.yml
Fill in initial data in create stack form

Step 4 – Add environment variables

In environment variables section can either:

  1. insert variables one by one (simple mode)
  2. paste all variables as one single text file (advanced mode)

For this guide we use option 2. Paste following text in environment variables section:

APP_IMAGE=ghcr.io/papermerge/papermerge
APP_TAG=2.1.0-alpha-latest
PAPERMERGE_JS_IMAGE=ghcr.io/papermerge/papermerge.js
PAPERMERGE_JS_TAG=2.1.0-alpha-latest

DB_USER=postgres
DB_NAME=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=postgres
DB_HOST=db
DB_PORT=5432

REDIS_HOST=redis
REDIS_PORT=6379

ES_HOSTS=es
ES_PORT=9200

SECRET_KEY=alsdkalsdjlaksdj90823423!KLKJLkjkjlkjlKLPOgrwqna

SUPERUSER_USERNAME=admin
SUPERUSER_EMAIL=admin@mail.com
SUPERUSER_PASSWORD=admin
Environment variables (advanced mode view)

Step 5 – Deploy the stack

Click on ‘Deploy the stack’ button at the very bottom of the screen as illustrated in picture below:

Deploy the stack button

Now you can see Papermerge stack in the list and if you click you will see all Papermerge services running:

Papermerge stack

Papermerge services up and running

Now you can access your Papermerge instance by opening your web browser and pointing it to address http://papermerge.local:

Papermerge 2.1 login view

This article is also available as video. In case you prefer video format over text – check following screencast:

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