This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/selfhosted by /u/zen-afflicted-tall on 2025-03-08 04:44:56+00:00.

Today I managed to setup paperless-ngx -- the self-hosted document scanning management system -- and got it running with Docker Compose, a local filesystem backup process, and even integrated it with my HP Officejet printer/scanner for automated scanning using node-hp-scan-to.

I thought I'd share my docker-compose.yml with the community here that might be interested in a similar solution:

Example Docker Compose file for paperless-ngx (https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx)

To setup on Linux, MacOS, or WSL - run the following commands:

- mkdir paperless && cd paperless

- Create docker-compose.yml

- Copy and paste the contents below into the file, save and quit

- Back in the Terminal, run the following commands:

- echo "PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 64)" > .env.paperless.secret

- docker compose up -d

- In your web browser, browse to: http://localhost:8804/

- Your "consume" folder will be in ./paperless/consume

volumes: redisdata:

services: paperless-broker: image: docker.io/library/redis:7 restart: unless-stopped volumes: - redisdata:/data

paperless-webserver: image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest restart: unless-stopped depends_on: - paperless-broker ports: - "8804:8000" volumes: - ./db:/usr/src/paperless/data - ./media:/usr/src/paperless/media - ./export:/usr/src/paperless/export - ./consume:/usr/src/paperless/consume env_file: .env.paperless.secret environment: PAPERLESS_REDIS: redis://paperless-broker:6379 PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE: eng

Automate daily backups of the Paperless database and assets:

paperless-backup: image: alpine:latest restart: unless-stopped depends_on: - paperless-webserver volumes: - ./db:/data/db:ro - ./media:/data/media:ro - ./export:/data/export:ro - ./backups:/backups command: > /bin/sh -c ' apk add --no-cache tar gzip sqlite sqlite-dev && mkdir -p /backups && while true; do echo "Starting backup at $$(date)" BACKUP_NAME="paperless_backup_$$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)" mkdir -p /tmp/$$BACKUP_NAME

    # Create a consistent SQLite backup (using .backup command)
    if [ -f /data/db/db.sqlite3 ]; then
      echo "Backing up SQLite database"
      sqlite3 /data/db/db.sqlite3 ".backup /tmp/$$BACKUP_NAME/db.sqlite3"
    else
      echo "SQLite database not found at expected location"
    fi

    # Copy important configuration files
    cp -r /data/db/index /tmp/$$BACKUP_NAME/index
    cp -r /data/media /tmp/$$BACKUP_NAME/

    # Create compressed archive
    tar -czf /backups/$$BACKUP_NAME.tar.gz -C /tmp $$BACKUP_NAME

    # Remove older backups (keeping last 7 days)
    find /backups -name "paperless_backup_*.tar.gz" -type f -mtime +7 -delete

    # Clean up temp directory
    rm -rf /tmp/$$BACKUP_NAME

    echo "Backup completed at $$(date)"
    sleep 86400  # Run once per day
  done
  '

OPTIONAL: if using an HP printer/scanner, un-comment the next section

Uses: https://github.com/manuc66/node-hp-scan-to

paperless-hp-scan:

image: docker.io/manuc66/node-hp-scan-to:latest

restart: unless-stopped

hostname: node-hp-scan-to

environment:

# REQUIRED - Change the next line to the IP address of your HP printer/scanner:

- IP=192.168.1.x

# Set the timezone to that of the host system:

- TZ="UTC"

# Set the created filename pattern:

- PATTERN="scan"_dd-mm-yyyy_hh-MM-ss

# Run the Docker container as the same user ID as the host system:

- PGID=1000

- PUID=1000

# Uncomment the next line to enable autoscanning a document when loaded into the scanner:

#- MAIN_COMMAND=adf-autoscan --pdf

volumes:

- ./consume:/scan

```