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Installing Listmonk on Unraid

2023-03-16

I wanted to play about with Listmonk and it's available as a Docker image, so I figured I'd just install it on my Unraid box. It doesn't have a recipe in Community Apps but it's not usually hard to reverse-engineer an official installation guide into something that "just works" on Unraid. After a first attempt failed, I looked around for a quick how-to guide online and mostly found... a mixture of people similarly failing to get it working or else having a kindly stranger offer to help... but not on the open Web where the rest of us can benefit from their knowledge. Sigh.

So I resolved that when I figured it out, I'd document the steps so that the next person after me can have an easier job of it.

Installing Listmonk on Unraid

Install Postgres if you don't have it already. I used the postgresql15 image from Community Apps.
Set up a role and database. To do this, log in to your Postgres database using your favourite Postgres client and run, for example:

CREATE USER listmonk WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'my-listmonk-db-password';

CREATE DATABASE listmonk OWNER listmonk;

Create a Listmonk configuration file. I created a listmonk share and put it in there, calling it /listmonk/config.toml, but anywhere on your Unraid server will do. There's a sample configuration in the repository. You'll probably want to change:

[app] address: change to 0.0.0.0:9000 to listen on all interfaces so you can access it from elsewhere on your network (might not be needed if you intend to proxy with a host-networked reverse proxy server)

[app] admin_username / admin_password: obviously change these - this is how you'll log in to your Listmonk system

[db] host: if your Postgres container and/or Listmonk container is running in bridged networking mode rather than host networking mode, you'll need to change this to the name or IP address of your Postgres server

[db] password: set to the password you chose for the listmonk user on your Postgres server

Add a Listmonk container. In Unraid, on the Docker tab, click the Add Container button. A minimal configuration might look like this:

Name: Listmonk

Repository: listmonk/listmonk:latest

Network Type: consider using Host to simplify your [db] setup, above.

Add a Port with Name: HTTP and Host Port: 9000. Then fill in 9000 as the value (or whatever port you want to run Listmonk on)

Add a Path with Name: Config and Container Path: /listmonk/config.toml. Set the Host Path to wherever you put the Listmonk configuration file, e.g. /mnt/user/listmonk/config.toml.

Start the Listmonk container and watch it stop. When you click "Apply" the container will start, run for a few seconds, and then stop. If you want, look at the logs and you'll see what the problem is: it needs to be started in a different way in order to set up the database. Instead, what we'll do is spin up a new Listmonk container just for that purpose (and then throw it away).
Start Listmonk in "install" mode. SSH into your Unraid server itself and run, e.g.

docker run --rm -ti --net='host' -e TZ="UTC" -v '/mnt/user/listmonk/config.toml':'/listmonk/config.toml':'rw' listmonk/listmonk:latest ./listmonk -- --install

Substitute /mnt/user/listmonk/config.toml for whatever path your configuration file is at, if applicable. You'll be prompted with the messages "** first time installation **", "** IMPORTANT: This will wipe existing listmonk tables and types in the DB 'listmonk' **", and then asked "continue (y/N)?". Press "y" and the installation will complete.

Start the Listmonk container again. This time it'll stay running and you'll be able to access the Web interface via e.g. https://your-unraid-server:9000/

Hope that helps somebody!

Links

Listmonk

My blog post about Fox, my Unraid server

Unraid's Community Apps marketplace

Unraid Forums topic: "listmonk docker?"

A kindly stranger offer to help

Sample config.toml for Listmonk