Try OpenMetadata in Docker

Get OpenMetadata running locally in minutes with Docker. Step-by-step setup guide, configuration tips, and troubleshooting for your metadata platform.

Local Docker Deployment

This installation doc will help you start a OpenMetadata standalone instance on your local machine.

If you’d rather see the steps in a guided tutorial, we’ve got you covered! Otherwise, feel free to read the content below 👇

Requirements (OSX, Linux and Windows)

Please ensure your host system meets the requirements listed below. Then continue to the Procedure for installing OpenMetadata.

OSX and Linux

Docker (version 20.10.0 or greater)

Docker is an open-source platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. It enables you to separate your applications from your infrastructure, so you can deliver software quickly using OS-level virtualization. It helps deliver software in packages called Containers.

To check the version of Docker you have, use the following command.

docker --version

If you need to install Docker, please visit Get Docker.

You must allocate at least 6 GiB of memory and 4 vCPUs to Docker in order to run OpenMetadata. To change the memory allocation for Docker, please visit Preferences -> Resources -> Advanced in your Docker Desktop.

Docker Compose (version v2.1.1 or greater)

The Docker compose package enables you to define and run multi-container Docker applications. The compose command integrates compose functions into the Docker platform, making them available from the Docker command-line interface ( CLI). The Python packages you will install in the procedure below use compose to deploy OpenMetadata.

• MacOS X: Docker on MacOS X ships with compose already available in the Docker CLI.
• Linux: To install compose on Linux systems, please visit the Docker CLI command documentation and follow the instructions.

To verify that the docker compose command is installed and accessible on your system, run the following command.

docker compose version

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

Docker Compose version v2.1.1

Install Docker Compose Version 2.0.0 on Linux

Follow the instructions here to install docker compose version 2.0.0

1. Run the following command to download the current stable release of Docker Compose

   DOCKER_CONFIG=${DOCKER_CONFIG:-$HOME/.docker}
   
   mkdir -p $DOCKER_CONFIG/cli-plugins 
   curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.2.3/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o $DOCKER_CONFIG/cli-plugins/docker-compose
   

   This command installs Compose V2 for the active user under $HOME directory. To install Docker Compose for all users on your system, replace ~/.docker/cli-plugins with /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins.

2. Apply executable permissions to the binary

   chmod +x $DOCKER_CONFIG/cli-plugins/docker-compose 
   

3. Test your installation

   docker compose version
   > Docker Compose version v2.2.3
   

Windows

WSL2, Ubuntu 20.04, and Docker for Windows

• Install WSL2
• Install Ubuntu 20.04
• Install Docker for Windows
  • Once installed, please follow the steps here and complete all the pre-requisites for a seamless installation and deployment.
  • After completion of the pre-requisites, please install python3-pip and python3-venv on your Ubuntu system.
    • Command: apt install python3-pip python3-venv (Ensure that you have the privilege to install packages, if not, please use Super User.)

Procedure

1. Create a directory for OpenMetadata

Create a new directory for OpenMetadata and navigate into that directory.

mkdir openmetadata-docker && cd openmetadata-docker

2. Download Docker Compose File from GitHub Releases

Download the docker-compose.yml file from the release page here.

The latest version is at the top of the page

• Deploying with MySQL: Download docker-compose.yml file from the above link.
• Deploying with PostgreSQL: Download docker-compose-postgres.yml file from the above link.

You can use the curl or wget command as well to fetch the docker compose files from your terminal -

curl -sL -o docker-compose.yml https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/releases/download/1.12.6-release/docker-compose.yml

curl -sL -o docker-compose-postgres.yml https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/releases/download/1.12.6-release/docker-compose-postgres.yml

wget https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/releases/download/1.12.6-release/docker-compose.yml

wget https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/releases/download/1.12.6-release/docker-compose-postgres.yml

3. Start the Docker Compose Services

Run the below command to deploy the OpenMetadata

For OpenMetadata with MySQL Database -

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up --detach 

For OpenMetadata with PostgreSQL Database -

docker compose -f docker-compose-postgres.yml up --detach

These commands will pull the docker images of Openmetadata for MySQL / PostgreSQL, OpenMetadata-Server, OpenMetadata-Ingestion and Elasticsearch.

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

+] Running 7/8
 ⠿ Network metadata_app_net                        Created                                                                                               0.2s
 ⠿ Volume "metadata_ingestion-volume-dag-airflow"  Created                                                                                               0.0s
 ⠿ Volume "metadata_ingestion-volume-dags"         Created                                                                                               0.0s
 ⠿ Volume "metadata_ingestion-volume-tmp"          Created                                                                                               0.0s
 ⠿ Container openmetadata_elasticsearch            Started                                                                                               5.9s
 ⠿ Container openmetadata_mysql                    Started                                                                                              38.3s
 ⠿ Container openmetadata_server                   Started                                                                                             124.8s
 ⠿ Container openmetadata_ingestion                Started                                                                                               0.3s

You can validate that all containers are up by running with command docker ps.

❯ docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                                  COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS                    PORTS                                                            NAMES
470cc8149826   openmetadata/server:1.12.6                             "./openmetadata-star…"   45 seconds ago   Up 43 seconds             3306/tcp, 9200/tcp, 9300/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8585-8586->8585-8586/tcp   openmetadata_server
63578aacbff5   openmetadata/ingestion:1.12.6                           "./ingestion_depende…"   45 seconds ago   Up 43 seconds             0.0.0.0:8080->8080/tcp                                           openmetadata_ingestion
9f5ee8334f4b   docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:7.16.3   "/tini -- /usr/local…"   45 seconds ago   Up 44 seconds             0.0.0.0:9200->9200/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9300->9300/tcp                   openmetadata_elasticsearch
08947ab3424b   openmetadata/db:1.12.6                                  "/entrypoint.sh mysq…"   45 seconds ago   Up 44 seconds (healthy)   3306/tcp, 33060-33061/tcp                                        openmetadata_mysql

In a few seconds, you should be able to access the OpenMetadata UI at http://localhost:8585

By default, we ship Docker Compose with host and docker named volume mapping for MySQL, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch and Ingestion Services with quickstart docker compose services. This will be available under docker-volume directory on host machine in the same path as docker compose files.

Log in to OpenMetadata

OpenMetadata provides a default admin account to login.

You can access OpenMetadata at http://localhost:8585. Use the following credentials to log in to OpenMetadata.

• Username: [e-mail]
• Password: admin

Once you log in, you can goto Settings -> Users to add another user and make them admin as well.

Log in to Airflow

OpenMetadata ships with an Airflow container to run the ingestion workflows that have been deployed via the UI.

In the Airflow, you will also see some sample DAGs that will ingest sample data and serve as an example.

You can access Airflow at http://localhost:8080. Use the following credentials to log in to Airflow.

• Username: admin
• Password: admin

Customizing Airflow Admin Credentials:

When using Docker Compose, you can change the default Airflow admin credentials by setting the following environment variables:

• Username: AIRFLOW_ADMIN_USER
• Password: AIRFLOW_ADMIN_PASSWORD

Airflow DAGs Showcased in Deployment

You can explore the examples of Airflow DAGs used with OpenMetadata. Refer here for more information.

Go on a tour and start discovering the power of metadata & collaboration

Start and Stop

From the same directory mentioned in step 1, use the following commands to start and stop the Docker Compose services.

To stop the services

docker compose stop

To start the services

docker compose start

Start and stop are used to completely halt or restart the running services. When services are stopped, their containers are shut down but remain available for restarting without rebuilding. Importantly, any data stored in Docker volumes remains unaffected during this process. The volumes stay intact and accessible, preserving your application’s state and making it easy to restart the services without losing data. This makes it a reliable option for temporary shutdowns while maintaining continuity.

Cleanup

To stop the Docker Compose services, run the following command from the same directory mentioned in step 1.

Stop the services

docker compose down

If you want to clean up the associated named volumes as well, use the following command

docker compose down --volumes

Named volumes are used to persist data created by containers, ensuring that the data remains even after the containers are stopped or removed. These volumes are managed by Docker and stored independently from the containers. Using the --volumes flag with the docker compose down command will delete these volumes, permanently removing all stored data.

Troubleshooting

Compose is not a docker command

If you are getting an error such as "compose" is not a docker command, you might need to revisit the installation steps above to make sure that Docker Compose is properly added to your system.

Network openmetadata_app_net Error

You might see something like:

The docker command executed was `/usr/local/bin/docker compose --file /var/folders/bl/rm5dhdf127ngm4rr40hvhbq40000gn/T/docker-compose.yml --project-name openmetadata up --detach`.
It returned with code 1
The content of stdout can be found above the stacktrace (it wasn't captured).
The content of stderr is 'Network openmetadata_app_net  Creating
Network openmetadata_app_net  Error
failed to create network openmetadata_app_net: Error response from daemon: Pool overlaps with other one on this address space

A common solution is to run docker network prune:

WARNING! This will remove all custom networks not used by at least one container.

So be careful if you want to keep up some (unused) networks from your laptop.

Connect Host Services from Docker Container

You can connect Docker containers to communicate with Host Operating System Services. Navigate to the official docker documentation which will help achieve the same.

Security

Please follow our Enable Security Guide to configure security for your OpenMetadata installation.

Next Steps

1. Refer the How-to Guides for an overview of all the features in OpenMetadata.
2. Visit the Connectors documentation to see what services you can integrate with OpenMetadata.
3. Visit the API documentation and explore the rich set of OpenMetadata APIs.

Volume Permissions: Operation not permitted

If you are running on Windows (WSL2) and see permissions errors when starting the databases (either MySQL or Postgres), e.g.,

openmetadata_postgresql     | chmod: changing permissions of '/var/lib/postgresql/data': Operation not permitted

You can try to update the /etc/wsl.conf file from the WSL2 machine to add:

[automount]
options = "metadata,case=force"