> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.bigcapital.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Docker
> This page includes information about the minimum requirements you need to install and use self-managed Bigcapital.
## Docker Bigcapital Production deployment guide
Looking for the quickest way to deploy? Check out the [Setup Script](/deployment/setup-script) for an automated installation experience.
### Pre-requisites
Before proceeding, make sure you have the latest version of docker and
docker-compose installed.
### Steps to deploy Bigcapital using docker-compose
1. Download the required files.
In a directory of your choosing, clone the Bigcapital repository and navigate into the `./bigcapital` directory by entering the following commands:
```bash theme={null}
git clone --depth 1 -b main https://github.com/bigcapitalhq/bigcapital.git && cd ./bigcapital
```
The most important files in the docker deployment the `docker-compose.prod.yml`, `.env.example` and `docker` folder, we're not going to build docker images of the application from scratch, but docker-compose already imports built images from Github Registry where our continuous-deployment push the new built images when we release new versions.
2. Configure the `.env` file.
Change all mail variables to configure it with your mail server and the password of databases.
```bash theme={null}
cp .env.example .env && nano .env
```
The `.env.example` file contains all the necessary environment variable
values, allowing you to begin using the application directly with these
pre-configured settings. You also have the option to modify the values as
needed.
3. Get the services up and running.
```bash theme={null}
docker-compose --file docker-compose.prod.yml up -d
```
* `-f` and the path to your configuration file
* `-d` to run containers in the background
4. **Your Bigcapital installation is complete.** Please note that the containers are not exposed to the internet and they only bind to the localhost. You don't have to setup Nginx or any other proxy server to the requests, we're already set up Nginx container on docker-compose file as proxy server.
Wait for all containers to be in running state, and then point your browser to `http://:8000/` to access the application.
Once the installation is done, you will have to create your first account. No
default account is provided.
### Verify the Installation
1. Ensure that your containers are running correctly. To view the status of your containers, run the following command:
```bash theme={null}
docker ps
```
The output should look similar to the following:
```bash theme={null}
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
28b2727fa769 bigcapital-nginx "/bin/sh -c nginx" 13 seconds ago Up 8 seconds 0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp bigcapital-nginx-gateway
7fad8c349625 ghcr.io/bigcapitalhq/server:latest "docker-entrypoint.s…" 13 seconds ago Up 9 seconds bigcapital-server
4822ee034710 bigcapital-redis "docker-entrypoint.s…" 14 seconds ago Up 10 seconds 6379/tcp bigcapital-redis
0c1806951917 bigcapital-mongo "docker-entrypoint.s…" 14 seconds ago Up 11 seconds 27017/tcp bigcapital-mongo
ce5c8de35d28 bigcapital-mysql "docker-entrypoint.s…" 14 seconds ago Up 10 seconds 3306/tcp, 33060/tcp bigcapital-mysql
984978c4f75d ghcr.io/bigcapitalhq/webapp:latest "/docker-entrypoint.…" 14 seconds ago Up 10 seconds 80/tcp bigcapital-webapp
```
### Database migration
Once you get the services up and running, the docker-compose file has `database_migration` container once listen to the `mysql` container and will execute the migration command in automated way and the container stop automatically after finish the migration (the container do not have to be run all the time), you have to execute it once to update the database schema.
#### Make sure the database migration ran successfully.
Get the container ID by listing all containers `docker ps -a | grep bigcapital-database_migration` and show the logs of that container by `docker logs -f CONTAINER_ID`
### Upgrading
First we need just to pull latest version of the project, might be some changes on the docker-compose files.
```bash theme={null}
git pull origin main
```
Now we are going to pull the latest images from regsitry by doing.
```bash theme={null}
docker-compose --file docker-compose.prod.yml pull
```
and start build and using them again.
```bash theme={null}
docker-compose --file docker-compose.prod.yml up --build -d
```
### Changing `.env` values after running Docker containers
Once the Docker containers are built and running, the application inside the container has already read the values from the .env file and is using them.
If you need to change the environment variable values, you will have to stop and re-start the Bigcapital containers.
If you were on **production**, use the following command.
```bash theme={null}
docker-compose --file docker-compose.prod.yml restart
```
Or if you were on **development** mode.
```bash theme={null}
docker-compose restart
```
All environment variables of databases cannot be modified. This is because the initial user, username, password and database name have already been set up by the database. However, if it becomes necessary to change these credentials, you can access the MySQL container and execute SQL queries to modify the username, password, or even the system database name. Afterwards, you can update the corresponding values in the .env file to ensure they match the changes made.
**Alternatively**, you can remove the MySQL volume by performing the following action, but that it will delete all your database data.
*on production*
```bash theme={null}
docker volume rm bigcapital_prod_mysql
```
*on development*
```bash theme={null}
docker volume rm bigcapital_dev_mysql
```