immich-app podman + quadlet deployment

This is a set of unit files to deploy immich through the podman-quadlet systemd generator

See the documentation This is adapted from immich provided docker-compose file, this will create a podman pod hosting all thc containers.

Overview

This setup consist in one .image file that does some prep work: pulling the image and creating a podman pod that will host all the containers Then the .container files are translated into systemd units that create the containers.

Note how the immich-server.container have an install target on default.target which makes it start on boot. I am not sure the multi-user target is really needed.

How do I deploy it ?

Rename env.example to immich.env.

rootful podman

Copy theses files into /etc/containers/systemd then reload systemd.

It can be a subdirectory. e.g :

sudo cp -r . /etc/containers/systemd/immich
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

rootless podman

Create a user that will run immich containers. The containers will act as this user on the host:

• This user will be used when enforcing file permissions in the mounted volumes.
• When immich creates files in the mounted volumes, they will be owned by this user on the host.

useradd -r -m -d /var/lib/immich immich

The containers and named volumes will be stored in /var/lib/immich.

Configure subuid and subgid for podman to be able to run as this user:

cat >> /etc/subuid <<EOF
immich:2000000:1000000
EOF

cat >> /etc/subgid <<EOF
immich:2000000:1000000
EOF

Copy these files into the user's containers/systemd directory:

sudo -u immich mkdir -p ~immich/.config/containers/systemd/immich
sudo -u immich cp -v *.image *.container *.pod immich.env ~immich/.config/containers/systemd/immich/

Start the user session, make it persistent and start the pod:

systemctl start user@$(id -u immich)
loginctl enable-linger immich
systemctl --user -M immich@.host start immich-pod.service

Watch journalctl to see if the containers start successfully - the first start can fail if downloading the images takes more than the default startup timeout:

journalctl -f

The containers should start on the next boot automatically.

TODO

• write a makefile or a justfile that insert the variables in the unit files maybe ? Right now it requires some copy and pasting.
• Contribute it upstream to immich