cobalt/docs/run-an-instance.md

how to host a cobalt instance yourself

using docker compose and package from github (recommended)

to run the cobalt docker package, you need to have docker and docker-compose installed and configured.

if you need help with installing docker, follow only the first step of these tutorials by digitalocean:

• how to install docker
• how to install docker compose

how to run a cobalt docker package:

1. create a folder for cobalt config file, something like this:

   mkdir cobalt
   

2. go to cobalt folder, and create a docker compose config file:

   cd cobalt && nano docker-compose.yml
   

   i'm using nano in this example, it may not be available in your distro. you can use any other text editor.

3. copy and paste the sample config from here for either web or api instance (or both, if you wish) and edit it to your needs. make sure to replace default URLs with your own or cobalt won't work correctly.

4. finally, start the cobalt container (from cobalt directory):

   docker compose up -d
   

if you want your instance to support services that require authentication to view public content, create cookies.json file in the same directory as docker-compose.yml. example cookies file can be found here.

cobalt package will update automatically thanks to watchtower.

it's highly recommended to use a reverse proxy (such as nginx) if you want your instance to face the public internet. look up tutorials online.

run cobalt api outside of docker (useful for local development)

requirements:

• node.js >= 18
• git
• pnpm

1. clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/imputnet/cobalt.
2. go to api/src directory: cd cobalt/api/src.
3. install dependencies: pnpm install.
4. create .env file in the same directory.
5. add needed environment variables to .env file. only API_URL is required to run cobalt.
   • if you don't know what api url to use for local development, use http://localhost:9000/.
6. run cobalt: pnpm start.

ubuntu 22.04 workaround

nscd needs to be installed and running so that the ffmpeg-static binary can resolve DNS (#101):

sudo apt install nscd
sudo service nscd start

list of all environment variables

variables for api

variable name	default	example	description
API_PORT	9000	9000	changes port from which api server is accessible.
API_LISTEN_ADDRESS	0.0.0.0	127.0.0.1	changes address from which api server is accessible. if you are using docker, you usually don't need to configure this.
API_URL	➖	https://api.cobalt.tools/	changes url from which api server is accessible. REQUIRED TO RUN THE API.
API_NAME	unknown	ams-1	api server name that is shown in /api/serverInfo.
API_EXTERNAL_PROXY	➖	http://user:password@127.0.0.1:8080	url of the proxy that will be passed to ProxyAgent and used for all external requests. HTTP(S) only.
CORS_WILDCARD	1	0	toggles cross-origin resource sharing. 0: disabled. 1: enabled.
CORS_URL	not used	https://cobalt.tools	cross-origin resource sharing url. api will be available only from this url if CORS_WILDCARD is set to 0.
COOKIE_PATH	not used	/cookies.json	path for cookie file relative to main folder.
PROCESSING_PRIORITY	not used	10	changes nice value* for ffmpeg subprocess. available only on unix systems.
FREEBIND_CIDR	➖	2001:db8::/32	IPv6 prefix used for randomly assigning addresses to cobalt requests. only supported on linux systems. see below for more info.
RATELIMIT_WINDOW	60	120	rate limit time window in seconds.
RATELIMIT_MAX	20	30	max requests per time window. requests above this amount will be blocked for the rate limit window duration.
DURATION_LIMIT	10800	18000	max allowed video duration in seconds.

* the higher the nice value, the lower the priority. read more here.

FREEBIND_CIDR

setting a FREEBIND_CIDR allows cobalt to pick a random IP for every download and use it for all requests it makes for that particular download. to use freebind in cobalt, you need to follow its setup instructions first. if you configure this option while running cobalt in a docker container, you also need to set the API_LISTEN_ADDRESS env to 127.0.0.1, and set network_mode for the container to host.