This docker image allows you to run the latest version of obsidian in docker as a container and access it via your web browser.

Use https://localhost:8080/ to access it locally, do not expose this to the web unless you secure it and know what you are doing!!

Note : This is a fork of sytone/obsidian-remote project and i missed some features like Nextcloud Sync or auto downloading the latest obsidian version during build. Feel free to use the original if you don't need such feature.

• Using the Container
  • Ports
  • Mapped Volumes
  • Environment Variables
• Using Docker Compose
• Enabling GIT for the obsidian-git plugin
  • Docker CLI example
• Reloading Obsidan in the Browser
• Nextcloud
• Setting PUID and PGID
• Adding missing fonts
  • Map font file using Docker CLI
  • Map font file using Docker Compose
• Hosting behind a reverse proxy
  • Example nginx configuration
• Hosting behind Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM)
• Updating Obsidian
• Building locally
• Copy/Paste From External Source
• Credits

To run a interactive version to test it out. This is using windows based path, update for the OS you are running on.

docker run --rm -it `
  -v D:/ob/vaults:/vaults `
  -v D:/ob/config:/config `
  -p 8080:8080 `
  ghcr.io/drdada/obsidian-remote:latest

Copy and fill the env file

cp .env.example .env.local

To run it as a daemon in the background, i recommand to do it via docker-compose (see below)

The ARM container is not available, feel free to use the sytone build.

version: '3.6'
services:
  obsidian-remote:
    image: 'ghcr.io/drdada/obsidian-remote:latest'
    env_file:
      - .env.local
    ports:
      - 8080
      - 443
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./vaults:/vaults
      - ./config:/config

This container uses the base images from linuxserver.io. This means you can the linuxserver.io mods. To add support for git add the DOCKER_MODS environment variable like so DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:universal-git.

docker run -d `
  -v D:/ob/vaults:/vaults `
  -v D:/ob/config:/config `
  -p 8080:8080 `
  -e DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:universal-git `
  ghcr.io/drdada/obsidian-remote:latest

If you make changes to plugins or do updates that need to have obsidian restarted, instead of having to stop and start the docker container you can just close the Obsidian UI and right click to show the menus and reopen it. Here is a short clip showing how to do it.

If you wish to store your MD files on your nextcloud instance, you can trigger a sync script.

Please make sure to copy the .env.local file

Now edit your .env file and fill your Nextcloud credentials and informations.

When starting your docker container, you'll have to mention en env-file

docker run -d `
  -v D:/ob/vaults:/vaults `
  -v D:/ob/config:/config `
  -p 8080:8080 `
  --env-file .env.local `
  ghcr.io/drdada/obsidian-remote:latest

The synchronization with Nextcloud is not automated because Obsidian frequently performs file save, which could result in frequent and potentially unnecessary synchronizations. To avoid network overload and minimize unnecessary traffic, the synchronization with Nextcloud is left to the user's discretion and must be done manually.

This approach allows the user to control when the synchronization should take place, choosing appropriate moments when your work are done.

You can trigger sync via right cliking on the desktop and choosing Nextcloud Sync

To set PUID and PGID use the follow environment variables on the command line, by default the IDs are 911/911

docker run --rm -it `
  -v D:/ob/vaults:/vaults `
  -v D:/ob/config:/config `
  -e PUID=1000 `
  -e PGID=1000 `
  -p 8080:8080 `
  ghcr.io/drdada/obsidian-remote:latest

Or, if you use docker-compose, add them to the environment: section:

environment:
  - PUID=1000
  - PGID=1000

It is most likely that you will use the id of yourself, which can be obtained by running the command below. The two values you will be interested in are the uid and gid.

id $user

Thanks to @aaron-jang for this example.

Download the font of the language that you want to use in Obsidian and add it to the volume as shown below.

  -v {downloaded font directory}:/usr/share/fonts/truetype/{font name}

    volumes:
      - {downloaded font directory}:/usr/share/fonts/truetype/{font name}

This is a danger zone ! Exposing this instance on the internet (even without a reverse proxy) increase security risk for your server. If you wish to do that please make sure you are securing it in some way!. You also need to ensure websocket support is enabled. Even if you can set auth to reach the container, it's always a good practice to secure auth to the higher level. So it's better to set password auth via the reverse proxy rather than here.

This is an example, I recommend a SSL based proxy and some sort of authentication.

server {
  set $forward_scheme http;
  set $server         "10.10.10.10";
  set $port           8080;

  listen 80;
  server_name ob.mycooldomain.com;
  proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
  proxy_set_header Connection $http_connection;
  proxy_http_version 1.1;
  access_log /data/logs/ob_access.log proxy;
  error_log /data/logs/ob_error.log warn;
  location / {
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection $http_connection;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    # Proxy!
    add_header       X-Served-By $host;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Scheme $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto  $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For    $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP          $remote_addr;
    proxy_pass       $forward_scheme:https://$server:$port$request_uri;
  }
}

Thanks to @fahrenhe1t for this example.

If you install obsidian-remote in Docker, you can proxy it through Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM - running on the same Docker instance), and use an access list to provide user authentication. The obsidian-remote container would have to be on the same network as Nginx Proxy Manager. If you don't expose the IP external to the container, authentication would be forced through NPM:

services:
  obsidian:
    image: 'ghcr.io/drdada/obsidian-remote:latest'
    container_name: obsidian-remote
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8080 #only exposes port internally to the container
    volumes:
      - /home/obsidian/vaults:/vaults
      - /home/obsidian/config:/config
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
      - DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:universal-git
networks:
  default:
    name: <your nginx proxy manager network>
    external: true

Create a proxy host in NPM pointing to the "obsidian-remote:8080" container, choose your domain name, use a LetsEncrypt SSL certificate, enable WebSockets. This video talks about it: Nginx Proxy Manager - ACCESS LIST protection for internal services

When creating the container it download the latest version of obsidian.

To build and use it locally run the following commands:

docker build --pull --rm `
  -f "Dockerfile" `
  -t obsidian-remote:latest `
  "."

To run the localy build image:

docker run --rm -it `
  -v D:/ob/vaults:/vaults `
  -v D:/ob/config:/config `
  -p 8080:8080 `
  obsidian-remote:latest bash

Open the KasmVNC menu on the middle right and select clipboard

Thanks to the original author @sytone