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Docker

Docker is the easiest production-style deployment for a single server.

For an Internet-reachable single-server installation, start with Private Remote Deployment. Its Compose template publishes no application ports, defaults to the main image, and adds an outer Cloudflare Access boundary, host controls, backups, and container limits.

Work Availability​

Work is enabled in repository Compose files by default. The image ships the Docker CLI and Compose mounts /var/run/docker.sock, so Work task containers are siblings of the Libre WebUI container. They appear in docker ps on the host.

A process with access to that socket has root-equivalent control of the Docker host. Enabling Work by default is a deliberate choice: Work is a core feature, and it cannot function without daemon access. The consequence is that every Libre WebUI administrator is effectively a host administrator. Plan for it:

  • Keep the stack on a host whose administrators you already trust.
  • Do not expose the published port to an untrusted network.
  • Remove the /var/run/docker.sock mount when Work is not required. The Work page then reports Runtime unavailable.

On Linux the socket belongs to the docker group instead of root, so the non-root app user needs that group id. Set it once:

echo "DOCKER_GID=$(docker run --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  alpine stat -c '%g' /var/run/docker.sock)" >> .env

Read it through a container as shown. A macOS host reports a different value than the container sees, because Docker Desktop proxies the socket through a VM. If the group is wrong, the Work page names the problem instead of failing silently. See Work: Isolated Workspaces.

Work previews and the Work Computer publish random ports only on a private host interface. Docker Desktop works with the Compose defaults: host loopback for the bind and host.docker.internal for the backend connection. Native Docker Engine cannot reach a host-loopback listener from a sibling container. Set the bind to its non-public Docker bridge gateway instead:

echo "WORK_PREVIEW_BIND=$(docker network inspect bridge \
  --format '{{(index .IPAM.Config 0).Gateway}}')" >> .env
echo "WORK_DOCKER_PUBLISHED_HOST=host.docker.internal" >> .env
docker compose up -d --force-recreate libre-webui

The Compose files map host.docker.internal through host-gateway. Never use WORK_PREVIEW_BIND=0.0.0.0; that would publish unauthenticated ephemeral task ports on every host interface instead of keeping them behind Libre WebUI's signed proxy.

Bundled Ollama​

Runs Libre WebUI and Ollama in one Compose stack:

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8080.

The WebUI port binds to host loopback by default. Set WEBUI_BIND_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0 only when a trusted LAN or a host reverse proxy must reach it, and restrict the port with the host firewall.

Ollama remains private to the Compose network. To make it available to host applications on loopback, add the explicit host override:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.ollama-host.yml up -d

Set OLLAMA_BIND_ADDRESS only when another machine must reach Ollama, and protect that port with a firewall and authentication-capable proxy.

NVIDIA GPU​

Use the GPU Compose file when Docker has NVIDIA runtime access:

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

Confirm GPU access from the Ollama container if models are still running on CPU.

External Ollama​

Use this when Ollama is already running on the host or another server:

docker compose -f docker-compose.external-ollama.yml up -d

Override the Ollama URL if needed:

OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://192.168.1.10:11434 docker compose -f docker-compose.external-ollama.yml up -d

Socket-Isolated Work​

The standard Compose files mount the Docker socket into the Libre WebUI container so Work can run task containers; that mount is root-equivalent control of the Docker host. To keep Work without giving the web application the socket, use the socket-proxy variant:

docker compose -f docker-compose.socket-proxy.yml up -d

A socket proxy on an internal network holds /var/run/docker.sock and forwards only the API sections Work uses (containers, images, volumes, networks, exec, info). Swarm, secrets, configs, build, and system endpoints are denied at the proxy. Libre WebUI reaches it via DOCKER_HOST=tcp://docker-socket-proxy:2375 — no socket mount, no DOCKER_GID, and the interactive terminal and system diagnostics work unchanged. See the Workspaces documentation for what this boundary does and does not cover.

Data Persistence​

Libre WebUI stores backend data in /app/backend/data inside the container. The Compose files mount that path as a named volume.

The image also uses that path by default when it is launched directly with docker run; its database preflight scratch stays separately under /app/backend/temp. Mount /app/backend/data whenever the container may be recreated.

For production, set stable secrets:

JWT_SECRET=replace-with-a-long-random-secret
ENCRYPTION_KEY=replace-with-64-hex-characters

Back up the data volume and encryption key together.

Before removing a directly launched container created from an older image, confirm that /app/backend/data/.encryption_key exists or record the configured ENCRYPTION_KEY. Older images could write an automatically generated key only to the container layer; deleting that container also deletes the only key able to decrypt its persisted database.

If you operate a custom Work-capable runtime, its task files live in separate Docker named volumes and are not included in the normal /app/backend/data backup.

Public Access​

Repository Compose files bind the WebUI to loopback and set CORS_ORIGIN directly. A value in your shell or .env file does not replace that literal. Edit the libre-webui.environment entry or save an explicit override as compose.origin.yml:

services:
  libre-webui:
    environment:
      CORS_ORIGIN: https://your-domain.example
      BASE_URL: https://your-domain.example

Apply the override together with the selected repository Compose file:

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

Then put Libre WebUI behind HTTPS with a reverse proxy or platform load balancer. Set WEBUI_BIND_ADDRESS to the exact interface that proxy needs; do not publish the port on every interface unless the firewall requires it.

The server already delivers the built frontend efficiently: hashed bundles under /js/ and /assets/ are sent brotli- or gzip-compressed with a one-year immutable cache lifetime, while index.html and the service worker are marked no-cache so a new release is picked up on the next load. A proxy does not need to recompress or cache those paths; pass Accept-Encoding through.

Useful Commands​

docker compose ps
docker compose logs -f libre-webui
docker compose logs -f ollama
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d