The two options provided here are the easiest ways to get Danswer up and running.

• Docker Compose is simpler and default values are already preset to run right out of the box with a single command. As everything is running on a single machine, this may not be as scalable depending on your hardware, traffic and needs.

• Kubernetes deployment is also provided. Depending on your existing infrastructure, this may be more suitable for production deployment but there are a few caveats.

  • User auth is turned on by default for Kubernetes (with the assumption this is for production use) so you must either update the deployments to turn off user auth or provide the values shown in the example secrets.yaml file.
  • The example provided assumes a blank slate for existing Kubernetes deployments/services. You may need to adjust the deployments or services according to your setup. This may require existing Kubernetes knowledge or additional setup time.

All the features of Danswer are fully available regardless of the deployment option.

For information on setting up connectors, check out https://docs.danswer.dev/connectors/overview

Docker Compose provides the easiest way to get Danswer up and running.

Requirements: Docker and docker compose

1. To run Danswer, navigate to docker_compose directory and run the following:

   • docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -p danswer-stack up -d --pull always --force-recreate
     • or run: docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -p danswer-stack up -d --build --force-recreate to build from source
   • Downloading images or packages/requirements may take 15+ minutes depending on your internet connection.

2. To shut down the deployment, run:

   • To stop the containers: docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -p danswer-stack stop
   • To delete the containers: docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -p danswer-stack down

3. To completely remove Danswer run:

   • WARNING, this will also erase your indexed data and users
   • docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -p danswer-stack down -v

Additional steps for user auth and https if you do want to use Docker Compose for production:

1. Set up a .env file in this directory with relevant environment variables.

   • Refer to env.prod.template
   • To turn on user auth, set:
     • GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=<your GCP API client ID>
     • GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=<associated client secret>
     • Refer to https://developers.google.com/identity/gsi/web/guides/get-google-api-clientid

2. Set up https:

   • Set up a .env.nginx file in this directory based on env.nginx.template.
   • chmod +x init-letsencrypt.sh + ./init-letsencrypt.sh to set up https certificate.

3. Follow the above steps but replacing dev with prod.

Depending on your deployment needs Kubernetes may be more suitable. The yamls provided will work out of the box but the intent is for you to customize the deployment to fit your own needs. There is no data replication or auto-scaling built in for the provided example.

Requirements: a Kubernetes cluster and kubectl

NOTE: This setup does not explicitly enable https, the assumption is you would have this already set up for your prod cluster

1. To run Danswer, navigate to kubernetes directory and run the following:

   • kubectl apply -f .

2. To remove Danswer, run:

   • WARNING, this will also erase your indexed data and users
   • kubectl delete -f .
   • To not delete the persistent volumes (Document indexes and Users), specify the specific .yaml files instead of . without specifying delete on persistent-volumes.yaml.