immich deb packages

Easy to install and highly configurable debian packages for running immich on your system natively without docker. It supports a simple all-in-one package as well as that any server componenent can be installed and run on different hosts. Out of the box it can be installed and built on Debian stable and latest Ubuntu LTS.

Installation

Easiest to install is using the the apt repository on packagecloud (only amd64 for now). For the all-in-one package install the immich which will install the main server, the machine-learning server, postgres, redis and all required dependencies. For a customized installation use immich-server, immich-machine-learning, immich-db-reqs, redis-server and immich-cli in any combination. immich currently requires a newer nodejs version than is available so you will need the apt repository from nodesource (for immich-server and immich-cli), don't worry you'll get notified if dependency requirements can't be fullfilled.

Alternatively you can download the prebuilt packages for manual installation from the releases section and you can verify the signatures with this signing-key. They are automatically built in Github Actions for the latest Ubuntu LTS and Debian stable (only amd64 for now).

Quick all-in-one installation commands:

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_22.x | sudo bash -
curl -fsSL https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/dionysius/immich/script.deb.sh | sudo bash -
sudo apt-get install immich

After installation please read thouroughly through the config files containing plentyful of comments and links in /etc/immich. You mainly need to setup credentials for between the services, adjust the listener address, and customize the services to your needs. The directory where immich will store your media by default is /var/lib/immich/data. Remember to keep good security and backup hygiene.

Quick setup of a postgresql user, the printed password should be set in the immich-server database settings. (Warning! This will create a superuser, but this way immich can initialize the pgvector extension and it can later make backups for you.)

 password=$(openssl rand -base64 32)
 echo "generated password is: ${password}"
 echo "create role immich with login superuser password '$password';" | sudo -u postgres psql
 echo "create database immich;" | sudo -u postgres psql
 echo "grant all privileges on database immich to immich;" | sudo -u postgres psql

After you have set the credentials in the database settings, restart the server with:

systemctl restart immich-server.service

The services should be up active (running), you can check the status with:

systemctl status immich-server.service
systemctl status immich-machine-learning.service
# or to see whats wrong (scroll down)
journalctl -u immich-server.service
journalctl -u immich-machine-learning.service

If this immich installation is on your local machine you can now navigate to http://localhost:2283 in your browser.

To access immich from other devices on your network, update the host setting: (Warning! This will allow immich to be accessed from your entire network)

IMMICH_HOST=0.0.0.0

Restart the service and verify it's running:

systemctl restart immich-server.service
systemctl status immich-server.service

You can now navigate to http://<ip-of-your-system>:2283 from any device on your network and the immich web UI should appear.

Advanced configuration

You can configure everything related to how the services are run through these enviroment files. Apt will notify during upgrade if it detects changes. Any changes to systemd units should be made with systemctl edit <unit file>. Remember to be sure what each setting you change does, keep your system safe.

While the goal is that those packages bring everything you need, the machine-learning server currently runs with uv at runtime to download python (if needed) and dependencies.

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Build source package

This debian source package builds immich natively on your build environment. No annoying docker! It is managed with git-buildpackage and aims to be a pretty good quality debian source package. You can find the maintaining command summary in debian/gbp.conf.

Requirements

• Installed git-buildpackage from your apt
• Installed build dependencies as defined in debian/control Build-Depends (will notify you in the build process otherwise)
  • mk-build-deps can help you automate the installation
• If nodejs/npm is not recent enough
  • Don't forget to look into your *-updates/*-backports apt sources for newer versions
  • Use a package from nodesource

Build package

• Clone with git-buildpackage: gbp clone https://github.com/dionysius/immich-deb.git
• Switch to the folder: cd immich-deb
• Build with git-buildpackage: gbp buildpackage
  • There are many arguments to fine-tune the build (see gbp buildpackage --help and dpkg-buildpackage --help)
  • Notable options: -b (binary-only, no source files), -us (unsigned source package), -uc (unsigned .buildinfo and .changes file), --git-export-dir=<somedir> (before building the package export the source there)

TODOs

• automatic testing
• describe predefined dependency pgvector, upgrade to vectorcord possible

Inspirations and Alternatives

• https://github.com/arter97/immich-native
• https://snapcraft.io/immich-distribution