Installation Instructions

Installing Miniflux is straightforward if you have some basic system administration knowledge.

Packages

PlatformTypeRepository URL
Debian/UbuntuUpstream (Binary)https://github.com/miniflux/v2/tree/master/packaging/debian
RHEL/FedoraUpstream (Binary)https://github.com/miniflux/v2/tree/master/packaging/rpm
Alpine LinuxCommunity (Source)https://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/tree/community/miniflux
Arch LinuxCommunity (Source)https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/miniflux/
FreeBSD PortCommunity (Source)https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/www/miniflux/
NixCommunity (Source)https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/pkgs/servers/miniflux

You can download precompiled binaries and packages on the GitHub Releases page. You could also build the application from the source code.

Database Configuration

Creating the Database

Here an example from the command line:

# Switch to the postgres user
$ su - postgres

# Create a database user for Miniflux
$ createuser -P miniflux
Enter password for new role: ******
Enter it again: ******

# Create a database for miniflux that belongs to our user
$ createdb -O miniflux miniflux

# Create the extension hstore as superuser
$ psql miniflux -c 'create extension hstore'
CREATE EXTENSION

Enabling HSTORE extension for Postgresql

Creating Postgresql extensions requires the SUPERUSER privilege. Several solutions are available:

  1. Give SUPERUSER privileges to the miniflux user only during the schema migration:
ALTER USER miniflux WITH SUPERUSER;
-- Run the migrations (miniflux -migrate)
ALTER USER miniflux WITH NOSUPERUSER;
  1. You could create the hstore extension with another user that have the SUPERUSER privileges before running the migrations.
sudo -u postgres psql $MINIFLUX_DATABASE
> CREATE EXTENSION hstore;

Note that if you use Debian or Ubuntu, you might have to install the postgresql-contrib package to activate the HSTORE extension.

Manual Installation

  1. Copy the precompiled binary somewhere on your server, for example in /usr/local/bin
  2. Make the file executable: chmod +x miniflux
  3. Define the environment variable DATABASE_URL if necessary
  4. Run the SQL migrations: miniflux -migrate
  5. Create an admin user: miniflux -create-admin
  6. Start the application: miniflux

You should configure a process manager like systemd or supervisord to supervise the Miniflux daemon.

Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian Package Installation

You must have Debian >= 8 or Ubuntu >= 16.04. When using the Debian package, the Miniflux daemon is supervised by systemd.

  1. Install the Debian package: dpkg -i miniflux_2.0.13_amd64.deb
  2. Define the environment variable DATABASE_URL if necessary
  3. Run the SQL migrations: miniflux -migrate
  4. Create an admin user: miniflux -create-admin
  5. Customize your configuration file /etc/miniflux.conf if necessary
  6. Restart the process: systemctl restart miniflux
  7. Check the process status: systemctl status miniflux

Note that you could also use the Miniflux APT repository instead of downloading manually the Debian package.

Since Miniflux v2.0.25, the Debian package is available for multiple architectures: amd64, arm64, and armhf. This way, it’s very easy to install Miniflux on a Raspberry Pi.

If you don’t want to run the SQL migrations manually each time you upgrade Miniflux, set the environment variable: RUN_MIGRATIONS=1 in /etc/miniflux.conf.

Systemd reads the environment variables from the file /etc/miniflux.conf. You must restart the service to take the new values into consideration.

RPM Package Installation

You must have Fedora or Centos/Redhat >= 7. When you use the RPM package, the Miniflux daemon is supervised by systemd.

  1. Install the Miniflux RPM package: rpm -ivh miniflux-2.0.13-1.0.x86_64.rpm
  2. Define the environment variable DATABASE_URL if necessary
  3. Run the SQL migrations: miniflux -migrate
  4. Create an admin user: miniflux -create-admin
  5. Customize your configuration file /etc/miniflux.conf if necessary
  6. Enable the systemd service: systemctl enable miniflux
  7. Start the process with systemd: systemctl start miniflux
  8. Check the process status: systemctl status miniflux

Note that you could also use the Miniflux RPM repository instead of downloading manually the RPM package.

Systemd reads the environment variables from the file /etc/miniflux.conf. You must restart the service to take the new values into consideration.

Alpine Linux Installation

Alpine Linux is a lightweight Linux distribution that is perfectly suited for running Miniflux.

An APK package is available from the Edge community repository (it was in testing before).

Edit the file /etc/apk/repositories to enable the Edge repository: http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community. And then run apk update.

The Miniflux installation is simple as running:

apk add miniflux miniflux-openrc miniflux-doc

Do not forget to install Postgresql:

apk add postgresql postgresql-contrib

Configure the database and enable the HSTORE extension as mentioned previously.

On Alpine Linux, the Miniflux process is supervised by supervise-daemon from OpenRC (there is no Systemd). The log file /var/log/miniflux.log is rotated with logrotate.

In this context, the configuration file /etc/miniflux.conf is used instead of environment variables:

# /etc/miniflux.conf

LOG_DATE_TIME=yes
LISTEN_ADDR=127.0.0.1:8080
DATABASE_URL=user=postgres password=secret dbname=miniflux sslmode=disable

# Run SQL migrations automatically:
# RUN_MIGRATIONS=1

To finalize the installation, create the database schema and a first user:

miniflux -c /etc/miniflux.conf -migrate
miniflux -c /etc/miniflux.conf -create-admin

And finally, start the application:

service miniflux start

Docker Installation

Docker Registries:

Docker Architectures:

Docker Tags:

Pull the image and run the container:

docker run -d \
  -p 80:8080 \
  --name miniflux \
  -e "DATABASE_URL=postgres://miniflux:*password*@*dbhost*/miniflux?sslmode=disable" \
  -e "RUN_MIGRATIONS=1" \
  -e "CREATE_ADMIN=1" \
  -e "ADMIN_USERNAME=*username*" \
  -e "ADMIN_PASSWORD=*password*" \
  miniflux/miniflux:latest

Running the command above will run the migrations and sets up a new admin account with the chosen username and password.

You could also use Docker Compose. Here is an example of a Compose file:

services:
  miniflux:
    image: miniflux/miniflux:latest
    ports:
      - "80:8080"
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://miniflux:secret@db/miniflux?sslmode=disable
  db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=miniflux
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret
    volumes:
      - miniflux-db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "pg_isready", "-U", "miniflux"]
      interval: 10s
      start_period: 30s
volumes:
  miniflux-db:

Start the application by running docker compose up -d.

Remember that you still need to run the database migrations and create the first user:

# Run database migrations
docker compose exec miniflux /usr/bin/miniflux -migrate

# Create the first user
docker compose exec miniflux /usr/bin/miniflux -create-admin

Another way of doing the same thing is to populate the variables RUN_MIGRATIONS, CREATE_ADMIN, ADMIN_USERNAME and ADMIN_PASSWORD. For example:

services:
  miniflux:
    image: miniflux/miniflux:latest
    ports:
      - "80:8080"
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://miniflux:secret@db/miniflux?sslmode=disable
      - RUN_MIGRATIONS=1
      - CREATE_ADMIN=1
      - ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
      - ADMIN_PASSWORD=test123
  db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=miniflux
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret
    volumes:
      - miniflux-db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "pg_isready", "-U", "miniflux"]
      interval: 10s
      start_period: 30s
volumes:
  miniflux-db:

There are more examples in the Git repository with Traefik and Caddy: https://github.com/miniflux/v2/tree/master/contrib/docker-compose

You could also configure an optional health check in your Docker Compose file:

miniflux:
  image: miniflux/miniflux:latest
  healthcheck:
    test: ["CMD", "/usr/bin/miniflux", "-healthcheck", "auto"]