Context: These notes are from when I was attempting to use Seafile for external file sharing. I’m not currently using it because I found that support for reverse proxies was broken in recent releases, or at the very least I couldn’t resolve issues with URL re-writes.

In this attempt, I created a Debian 12 VM in Proxmox and installed docker. I started with Seafile 13 (with a few version number tweaks because it’s in testing state), then tried Seafile 12, and finally had to revert to Seafile 11 to fix the mixed content issues. See Active Troubleshooting section for more details.

Setup debian VM

Create new VM in Proxmox UI and use a Debian 12 ISO. Go through installation wizard to create a a non-root user account.

Add some additional security

> ssh root@debianVM
 
# Add your user account to the `sudo` group.
usermod -aG sudo adam
 
 
> ssh adam@debianVM
 
# Install ufw for firewall, fail2ban for intrusion prevention
sudo apt install ufw fail2ban
sudo ufw enable
sudo systemctl start ufw
sudo systemctl enable ufw
 
# Disable root login
sudo passwd -l root
sudo sed -i '/^root:/s/:[^:]*$/:\/sbin\/nologin/' /etc/passwd

Use larger storage device for `seafile-data`

I want to have the largest possible storage device for seafile-data, so I added a 4TB HDD via Proxmox UI. Then created a link to /opt/seafile-data where the docker container expects to read it.

# Find the appropriate drive. In this example, we'll use sdb.
sudo fdisk -l
 
# Create partition table, filesystem, and mount points
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/big-storage
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/big-storage
 
# Get the partition UUID and set up auto-mount in /etc/fstab
sudo blkid /dev/sdb1
echo "UUID=xxxxxx  /mnt/big-storage  ext4  defaults  0  2" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
 
# Create symbolic link to seafile-data
sudo ln -s /mnt/big-storage/seafile-data /opt/seafile-data

Install docker via apt

# Add Docker's official GPG key:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
# Add the repository to Apt sources:
echo   "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" |   sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Seafile 13 / 12

13.0 docker deployment following manual

mkdir -p /opt/seafile/13
cd /opt/seafile/13
wget -O .env https://manual.seafile.com/13.0/repo/docker/ce/env
wget https://manual.seafile.com/13.0/repo/docker/ce/seafile-server.yml
wget https://manual.seafile.com/13.0/repo/docker/seadoc.yml
wget https://manual.seafile.com/13.0/repo/docker/caddy.yml

12.0 docker deployment following manual

mkdir -p /opt/seafile/12
cd /opt/seafile/12
wget -O .env https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/repo/docker/ce/env
wget https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/repo/docker/seadoc.yml
wget https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/repo/docker/ce/seafile-server.yml
wget https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/repo/docker/caddy.yml

https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/setup/caddy/

Add your required setup configuration in .env and use docker compose up -d

Active Troubleshooting

I can’t use any file upload or seadoc functionalities in the Web UI. My browser console will be full of warnings about mixed content because the application serves errors about URLs like http://sf.my.domain/seafhttp . The rewrite rules seem to have changed at some point, still determining how to address this without forking the seafile application itself.

This update removed SERVICE_URL + FILE_SERVER_ROOT and FORCE_HTTPS_IN_CONF was removed from get_proto(). Seafile 11 is where it last worked, so a dirty fix is to revert back to Seafile 11 for now.

Custom image

patch 11.0 get_proto() into seafile 13.0:

# Download seafile-docker repo
git clone https://github.com/haiwen/seafile-docker
cd seafile-docker
 
# Prep env for build
## patch L115-120 with scripts/scripts_11.0/bootstrap.py#L115-L120
vim scripts/scripts_13.0/bootstrap.py
 
# Build seafile package 13.0.6 via docker
## patch L37 with `libhiredis-dev \`
vim build/seafile_12.0/seafile-build.sh
cd build/seafile_12.0/
docker run --rm -it --volume=/$(pwd):/seafile ubuntu:24.04 /seafile/seafile-build.sh 13.0.6
 
# Build seafile container 13.0.6
## patch L2 with `SEAFILE_VERSION=13.0.6`
## patch L48 with `COPY scripts/scripts_13.0 /scripts`
## patch L75 with `COPY build/seafile_12.0/seafile-server-${SEAFILE_VERSION}`
cd ../../
cp image/seafile_13.0/Dockerfile .
vim Dockerfile
 
# Buld image and push to dockerhub
docker login
docker build -t adamhurm/seafile:13.0.6 .

Initially the build script left the build/seafile_12.0/src/seafile-server directory empty, and by manually populating that directory the setup-seafile-mysql.sh error below will be resolved. The fix is to replace build/seafile_12.0/seafile-server-13.0.6 with the appropriate git repo and then hide/remove .git .

## ERROR: seafile docker container can't find `setup-seafile-mysql.sh`
[2025-07-05 21:45:19] Now running setup-seafile-mysql.py in auto mode.
/bin/sh: 1: /opt/seafile/seafile-server-13.0.6/setup-seafile-mysql.sh: not found
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "/scripts/start.py", line 94, in <module>
     main()
   File "/scripts/start.py", line 59, in main
     init_seafile_server()
   File "/scripts/bootstrap.py", line 156, in init_seafile_server
     call('{} auto -n seafile'.format(setup_script), env=env)
   File "/scripts/utils.py", line 71, in call
     return subprocess.check_call(*a, **kw)
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   File "/usr/lib/python3.12/subprocess.py", line 413, in check_call
     raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
 subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '/opt/seafile/seafile-server-13.0.6/setup-seafile-mysql.sh auto -n seafile' returned non-zero exit status 127.
 
---
 
## ERROR: go build fails for seafile-server because `.git` directory is present
error obtaining VCS status: exit status 128
        Use -buildvcs=false to disable VCS stamping.
[ERROR] error when running command:
        cd fileserver && go build && cd -

Even after all the tweaks above, I am still getting mixed content warnings and attempts to reach out to http://sf.my.domain/seafhttp/* so I will have to change more than just get_proto().

Right now this is still tbd, and I’m not sure if I’ll come back to it.

Seafile 11

11.0 docker deployment following manual

mkdir -p /opt/seafile/11
cd /opt/seafile/11
wget -O "docker-compose.yml" "https://manual.seafile.com/11.0/docker/docker-compose/ce/11.0/docker-compose.yml"

Add all the environmental variables to docker-compose.yml manually because .env isn’t supported yet.

Force HTTPS URLs and let Pangolin handle the certs

Fix mixed content warnings

# /opt/seafile/docker-compose.yml
  seafile:
    environment:
      - FORCE_HTTPS_IN_CONF=true

Fix CSRF error

# /opt/seafile-data/seafile/conf/seahub_settings.py
SERVICE_URL = "https://sf.my.domain"              # edit SERVICE_URL
CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS = ['https://sf.my.domain']   # add CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS

Setting up pangolin redirect

Add a newt container to the docker network

# /opt/seafile/docker-deployment.yml (v11)
# /opt/seafile/caddy.yaml (v12,13)
  newt:
    image: fosrl/newt
    container_name: newt
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - DOCKER_SOCKET=/var/run/docker.sock
      - PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT=https://pangolin.my.domain
      - NEWT_ID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
      - NEWT_SECRET=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    networks:
      - seafile-net

Set redirect rule in pangolin web UI

using docker container name (recommended, dynamic)

In pangolin Resources, under Proxy tab:
Method: http
IP / Hostname: seafile
Port: 80

using docker container name (recommended, easy)

If you used the newt container addon above and enabled Docker Socket discovery in your pangolin Site, you can go to pangolin Resources under Proxy tab:
Method: http
IP / Hostname: Click ‘View Docker Containers’ and select your caddy container

docker inspect (manual example)

Get IP of caddy container and add to Pangolin rule:
docker inspect -f '{{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' seafile-caddy

In pangolin Resources under Proxy tab:
Method: http
IP / Hostname: 172.18.0.x
Port: 80

hurm.shop

Explorer

Seafile 13,12,11 in Proxmox

Setup debian VM

Add some additional security

Use larger storage device for `seafile-data`

Install docker via apt

Seafile 13 / 12

13.0 docker deployment following manual

12.0 docker deployment following manual

Active Troubleshooting

Custom image

Seafile 11

11.0 docker deployment following manual

Force HTTPS URLs and let Pangolin handle the certs

Fix mixed content warnings

Fix CSRF error

Setting up pangolin redirect

Add a newt container to the docker network

Set redirect rule in pangolin web UI

using docker container name (recommended, dynamic)

using docker container name (recommended, easy)

docker inspect (manual example)

Graph View

Table of Contents

hurm.shop

Explorer

Seafile 13,12,11 in Proxmox

Setup debian VM

Add some additional security

Use larger storage device for seafile-data

Install docker via apt

Seafile 13 / 12

13.0 docker deployment following manual

12.0 docker deployment following manual

Active Troubleshooting

Custom image

Seafile 11

11.0 docker deployment following manual

Force HTTPS URLs and let Pangolin handle the certs

Fix mixed content warnings

Fix CSRF error

Setting up pangolin redirect

Add a newt container to the docker network

Set redirect rule in pangolin web UI

using docker container name (recommended, dynamic)

using docker container name (recommended, easy)

docker inspect (manual example)

Graph View

Table of Contents

Use larger storage device for `seafile-data`