How to install PhotoPrism

seedling

planted Jun 08, 2021

This is a complete step-by-step guide to install PhotoPrism on a Raspberry Pi 4.

The installation of PhotoPrism is pretty straight forward.

However, a Pi 3 or 4 is recommended to be able to use 64 bit mode and achieve a better indexing performance.

I used a MacBook for my setup. The steps to flash the SD card vary a bit on a Windows machine.

1. Flash RaspberryOS Lite via Balena Etcher (Mac)
2. Reinsert SD card to mount it on the Mac
3. Add ssh file to enable ssh on the device

cd /Volumes/boot
touch ssh

4. (Create a wpa_supplicant.conf to enable Wi-Fi if needed)

cd /Volues/boot
vim wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=<Country Code>

network={
     ssid="<SSID>"
     psk="<PASSWORD>"
     scan_ssid=1
}

4. Otherwise, set up a connection via LAN (you can also set up Wi-Fi later via raspi-config)
5. Insert SD card into raspberry

• a Raspberry Pi 3 / 4 is recommended to enable 64bit mode, see https://docs.photoprism.org/getting-started/raspberry-pi/#system-requirements

6. Connect to the device via ssh,

• user: pi
• password: raspberry

ssh pi@<your-ip>

7. Change your password

passwd

8. raspi-config` and change time zone and update raspi-config
9. Update the system via sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
10. Enable 64 bit mode in config.txt

sudo vi /boot/config.txt

• Find the section for your Pi, either [pi4] or [pi3] and add the following:

arm_64bit=1

• sudo reboot
• ssh back in and check if it worked

  uname -a

• your output should look like this:

Linux raspberrypi 5.10.17-v8+ #1414 SMP PREEMPT Fri Apr 30 13:23:25 BST 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linuxe

• we are looking for the arch64 part

11. Install docker and docker-compose

sudo apt install docker docker-compose

12. Download the PhotoPrism docker file

wget https://dl.photoprism.org/docker/arm64/docker-compose.yml

13. Configure the docker-compose.yml to your liking I recommend the following:

PHOTOPRISM_ADMIN_PASSWORD: "betterPassword"
HOTOPRISM_DATABASE_PASSWORD: "betterPassword"
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: betterPassword
MYSQL_PASSWORD: betterPassword

14. Start the docker image

sudo docker-compose up -d

• the download may take some time
• test if your PhotoPrism instance is running by visiting the local IP of your Pi on port 2342

When you are done, consider adding an external SSD drive to save your photos.