Storage

This page covers the storage choices for your wger instance: which database backend to use, and where to keep media and static files.

By default, wger uses Postgres for the database and stores media and static files on local volumes (served by the bundled nginx). Both can be swapped out.

Database backend

The default Postgres setup is recommended for production. For small or test installations, SQLite is also supported.

SQLite

If you want to use an existing database, copy it next to the docker compose file. Otherwise, create an empty file and make sure permissions are correct:

touch ./database.sqlite
chmod 664 ./database.sqlite

In your env file:

DJANGO_DB_ENGINE=django.db.backends.sqlite3
DJANGO_DB_DATABASE=/home/wger/db/database.sqlite

In docker-compose.yml, mount the SQLite file into the web and celery services, remove the dependency on the db service, and delete the db service definition entirely:

web:
  image: docker.io/wger/server:latest
  depends_on:
    # delete this
    db:
      condition: service_healthy
    [...]
  volumes:
    - ./database.sqlite:/home/wger/db/database.sqlite
    [...]

celery_worker:
  image: docker.io/wger/server:latest
  volumes:
    - ./database.sqlite:/home/wger/db/database.sqlite
    [...]

# remove the db service
db:
  [...]

S3 / object storage

wger supports serving static files (JS, CSS, etc.) and media files (gallery images, exercise and ingredient images, etc.) from an S3-compatible object store.

If you enable this, you don’t need nginx to serve these files anymore, a plain reverse proxy in front of the application is enough. You will likely need to adjust the CORS settings on your storage provider so the application can fetch the files from the S3 domain.

Settings

USE_S3_MEDIA_FILES

bool, default: False

Enable S3-backed media storage.

USE_S3_STATIC_FILES

bool, default: False

Enable S3-backed static files storage. When enabled, set DJANGO_COLLECTSTATIC_ON_STARTUP to false, the collectstatic command will otherwise needlessly increase startup time.

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

access key

AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

secret key

AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME

bucket name

AWS_S3_REGION_NAME

region used to build endpoints such as eu-central-1 or hel1

AWS_S3_DOMAIN

base domain used to build endpoints such as amazonaws.com

AWS_S3_ENDPOINT_URL

string, default: https://{AWS_S3_REGION_NAME}.{AWS_S3_DOMAIN}

explicit endpoint, change if needed

AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN

string, default: {AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME}.{AWS_S3_REGION_NAME}.{AWS_S3_DOMAIN}

custom domain, change if needed

USE_S3_URL_FOR_MEDIA

bool, default: True

When true, the app sets MEDIA_URL to https://{AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN}/ (otherwise the configured MEDIA_URL value is used). Set this to false only if you want to use a reverse proxy to make the media files appear under the same domain as the application, e.g. with nginx’s proxy_pass.

USE_S3_URL_FOR_STATIC

bool, default: True

When true, the app sets STATIC_URL to https://{AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN}/ (otherwise the configured STATIC_URL value is used).

S3_MEDIA_FILES_LOCATION and S3_STATIC_FILES_LOCATION

string, default: media and static

Used to control the prefix for media and static files in the bucket.

AWS_QUERYSTRING_AUTH

bool, default: False

Controls signed URLs; currently set to False (public URLs).

Examples

AWS

AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME=my-bucket
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME=eu-central-1
AWS_S3_DOMAIN=amazonaws.com
AWS_S3_ENDPOINT_URL=https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com
AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN=my-bucket.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com

Hetzner

AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME=my-bucket
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME=hel1
AWS_S3_DOMAIN=your-objectstorage.com

For other providers and options, consult the django-storages documentation: https://django-storages.readthedocs.io

Note

If you already have files in a local folder, you’ll need to copy them over to the bucket with a tool like awscli or rclone.