LibrePhotos is a self-hosted, privacy-respecting alternative to Google Photos. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through the process of how to install LibrePhotos on OpenBSD.
Before we start, you should have the following:
First, we need to install some necessary packages for LibrePhotos to run correctly. Open a terminal and run the following command as root or with sudo:
pkg_add python3 py3-pip py3-virtualenv py3-pillow mariadb-server
Note: MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL, so we’ll be using it to handle the database.
LibrePhotos needs a dedicated user account and a database to store its data. Run the following commands to create a new user and database:
useradd -d /home/librephotos -m -s /bin/ksh librephotos
su -l librephotos
mysql_install_db
mysqld_safe &
mysql_secure_installation
mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE librephotos;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON librephotos.* TO 'librephotos'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password_here';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit
Note: Replace your_password_here with a strong password.
Log back into the root account, and run the following commands to download and install LibrePhotos:
cd /usr/local
git clone https://github.com/LibrePhotos/librephotos.git
chown -R librephotos:www librephotos
chmod -R 750 librephotos
cd librephotos
su -l librephotos
virtualenv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
./manage.py migrate
Before we can start using LibrePhotos, we need to configure it. Run the following commands to create a configuration file:
nano librephotos/local.cfg
Add the following lines:
[server]
# set BASE_URL to the publicly accessible URL of LibrePhotos
BASE_URL = http://yourserver.com:8000
[database]
NAME = librephotos
USER = librephotos
PASSWORD = your_password_here
[email]
# set EMAIL_HOST_USER and EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD to your email server's credentials
EMAIL_HOST_USER = your_email_username_here
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = your_email_password_here
Save and exit the text editor by executing CTRL + X followed by Y.
Finally, we can start using LibrePhotos. Run the following command to start the server:
./manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
LibrePhotos should now be accessible through your server’s IP address or domain name, followed by :8000 in your web browser.
That’s it! Congratulations on successfully installing LibrePhotos on OpenBSD.
If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!
Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!
