Linux Manual Deployment

Linux Manual Deployment

This article will walk you through the procedure to manually install and deploy Bitwarden to your own server. Please review Bitwarden software release support documentation.

[!WARNING] Manual Server Setup Manual installations should be conducted by advanced users only. Only proceed if you are very familiar with Docker technologies and desire more control over your Bitwarden installation.

Manual installations lack the ability to automatically update certain dependencies of the Bitwarden installation. As you upgrade from one version of Bitwarden to the next you will be responsible for changes to required environment variables, changes to nginx default.conf, changes to docker-compose.yml, and so on.

We will try to highlight these in the release notes on GitHub. You can also monitor changes to the dependency templates used by the Bitwarden installation script on GitHub.

Requirements

	Minimum	Recommended
Processor	x64, 1.4GHz	x64, 2GHz dual core
Memory	2GB RAM	4GB RAM
Storage	12GB	25GB
Docker Version	Engine 26+ and Compose`ª`	Engine 26+ and Compose`ª`

ª - Docker Compose is automatically installed as a plugin when you download Docker Engine. Download Docker Engine for Linux.

Installation procedure

Create Bitwarden local user & directory

Configure your Linux server with a dedicated bitwarden service account, from which to install and run Bitwarden. Doing so will isolate your Bitwarden instance from other applications running on your server. For more information, see Docker's Post-installation steps for Linux documentation.

Create a bitwarden user:

sudo adduser bitwarden

Set a password for the bitwarden user:

sudo passwd bitwarden

Create a docker group (if it doesn't already exist):

sudo groupadd docker

Add the bitwarden user to the docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker bitwarden

Create a bitwarden directory:

sudo mkdir /opt/bitwarden

Set permissions for the /opt/bitwarden directory:

sudo chmod -R 700 /opt/bitwarden

Set the bitwarden user ownership of the /opt/bitwarden directory:

sudo chown -R bitwarden:bitwarden /opt/bitwarden

Download & configure

[!TIP] If you've setup self-host local user and directory. Once you have created a Bitwarden user & directory, complete the following as the bitwarden user from the /opt/bitwarden directory. Do not install Bitwarden as root, as you will encounter issues during installation.

To download Bitwarden and configure Bitwarden server assets:

Download a stubbed version of Bitwarden's dependencies (docker-stub-US.zip or docker-stub-EU.zip) from the releases pages on GitHub. For example:

curl -L https://github.com/bitwarden/server/releases/download/v<version_number>/docker-stub-US.zip \
 -o docker-stub-US.zip

Create a new directory named bwdata and extract docker-stub.zip to it, for example:

unzip docker-stub-US.zip -d bwdata

Once unzipped, the bwdata directory will match what the docker-compose.yml file's volume mapping expects. You may, if you wish, change the location of these mappings on the host machine. 3. In ./bwdata/env/global.override.env, edit the following environment variables:

globalSettings__baseServiceUri__vault=: Enter the domain of your Bitwarden instance.
globalSettings__sqlServer__ConnectionString=: Replace the RANDOM_DATABASE_PASSWORD with a secure password for use in a later step.
globalSettings__identityServer__certificatePassword: Set a secure certificate password for use in a later step.
globalSettings__internalIdentityKey=: Replace RANDOM_IDENTITY_KEY with a random alphanumeric string.
globalSettings__oidcIdentityClientKey=: Replace RANDOM_IDENTITY_KEY with a random alphanumeric string.
globalSettings__duo__aKey=: Replace RANDOM_DUO_AKEY with a random alphanumeric string.
globalSettings__installation__id=: Enter an installation id retrieved from https://bitwarden.com/host.
globalSettings__installation__key=: Enter an installation key retrieved from https://bitwarden.com/host.

[!TIP] Manual Install Environment Variables At this time, consider also setting values for all globalSettings__mail__smtp__ variables and for adminSettings__admins. Doing so will configure the SMTP mail server used to send invitations to new organization members and provision access to the System Administrator Portal.

Learn more about environment variables. 4. From ./bwdata, generate a .pfx certificate file for the identity container and move it to the mapped volume directory (by default, ./bwdata/identity/). For example, run the following commands:

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes -keyout identity.key -out identity.crt -subj "/CN=Bitwarden IdentityServer" -days 10950

and

openssl pkcs12 -export -out ./identity/identity.pfx -inkey identity.key -in identity.crt -passout pass:IDENTITY_CERT_PASSWORD

In the above command, replace IDENTITY_CERT_PASSWORD with the certificate password created and used in Step 3. 5. Create a subdirectory in ./bwdata/ssl named for your domain, for example:

mkdir ./ssl/bitwarden.example.com

Provide a trusted SSL certificate and private key in the newly created ./bwdata/ssl/bitwarden.example.com subdirectory.

[!NOTE] SSL Directory to Volume Mapping This directory is mapped to the NGINX container at /etc/ssl. If you can't provide a trusted SSL certificate, front the installation with a proxy that provides an HTTPS endpoint to Bitwarden client applications. 7. In ./bwdata/nginx/default.conf:

Replace all instances of bitwarden.example.com with your domain, including in the Content-Security-Policy header.
Set the ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key variables to the paths of the certificate and private key provided in Step 7.
Take one of the following actions, depending on your certificate setup:
If using a trusted SSL certificate, set the ssl_trusted_certificate variable to the path to your certificate.
If using a self-signed certificate, comment out the ssl_trusted_certificate variable.
In ./bwdata/env/mssql.override.env, replace RANDOM_DATABASE_PASSWORD with the password created in Step 3.
In ./bwdata/web/app-id.json, replace bitwarden.example.com with your domain.
In ./bwdata/env/uid.env, set the UID and GID of the bitwarden users and group you created earlier so the containers run under them, for example:

LOCAL_UID=1001
LOCAL_GID=1001

Start your server

Start your Bitwarden server with the following command:

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

Verify that all containers are running correctly:

docker ps

Congratulations! Bitwarden is now up and running at https://your.domain.com. Visit the web vault in your browser to confirm that it's working.

You may now register a new account and log in. You will need to have configured SMTP environment variables (see Environment Variables) in order to verify the email for your new account.

Next Steps:

If you are planning to self-host a Bitwarden organization, see self-host an organization to get started.
For additional information see self hosting FAQs.

Update your server

Updating a self-hosted server that has been installed and deployed manually is different from the standard update procedure. To update your manually-installed server:

Download the latest docker-stub.zip archive from the releases pages on GitHub.
Unzip the new docker-stub.zip archive and compare its contents with what's currently in your bwdata directory, copying anything new to the pre-existing files in bwdata. Do not overwrite your pre-existing bwdata directory with the contents of the newer docker-stub.zip archive, as this would overwrite any custom configuration work you've done.
Run the following command to restart your server with your updated configuration and the latest containers:

docker compose -f ./docker/docker-compose.yml down && docker compose -f ./docker/docker-compose.yml up -d