Self Deploy

Prerequisites

To self-deploy Refly, you need to have the following installed:

• Docker (version 20.10.0 or higher)
• Optional: PostgreSQL client (either psql or GUI-based tools), used for managing usable LLM models
• Optional: Kubernetes cluster

INFO

We plan to provide a fully-functional native application in the future, offering seamless installation experience in a privacy-focused manner. Stay tuned!

Steps

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/refly-ai/refly.git

TIP

If you only need to deploy with Docker, you can add --depth 1 to the clone command to save disk space and download time.

2. Prepare the configuration via .env file

cd refly/deploy/docker
cp ../../apps/api/.env.example .env

INFO

A detailed description of all the environment variables is available in the Configuration.

3. Start the application via docker compose

docker compose up -d

For passionate users

By default, the docker compose file will pull the latest image, which is the latest stable version. If you want to use the up-to-date version synced with the Refly Cloud, you can replace image tag latest with nightly in the docker-compose.yml file.

You can run docker ps to check the status of the containers. The expected status for each container should be Up and healthy. An example output is shown below:

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                      COMMAND                  CREATED       STATUS                 PORTS                                                                                    NAMES
71681217973e   reflyai/refly-api:latest                   "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago   Up 5 hours (healthy)   3000/tcp, 0.0.0.0:5800-5801->5800-5801/tcp, :::5800-5801->5800-5801/tcp                  refly_api
462d7e1181ca   reflyai/qdrant:v1.13.1                     "./entrypoint.sh"        5 hours ago   Up 5 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:36333-6334->6333-6334/tcp, :::6333-6334->6333-6334/tcp                           refly_qdrant
fd287fa0a04e   redis/redis-stack:6.2.6-v18                "/entrypoint.sh"         5 hours ago   Up 5 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp, :::36379->6379/tcp, 0.0.0.0:38001->8001/tcp, :::38001->8001/tcp  refly_redis
16321d38fc34   reflyai/refly-web:latest                   "/docker-entrypoint.…"   5 hours ago   Up 5 hours             0.0.0.0:5700->80/tcp, [::]:5700->80/tcp                                                  refly_web
d3809f344fed   searxng/searxng:latest                     "/usr/local/searxng/…"   5 hours ago   Up 5 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:38080->8080/tcp, [::]:38080->8080/tcp                                            refly_searxng
a13f349fe35b   minio/minio:RELEASE.2025-01-20T14-49-07Z   "/usr/bin/docker-ent…"   5 hours ago   Up 5 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:39000-39001->9000-9001/tcp, :::39000-39001->9000-9001/tcp                        refly_minio
e7b398dbd02b   postgres:16-alpine                         "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago   Up 5 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:35432->5432/tcp, :::35432->5432/tcp                                              refly_db

Deploy to Kubernetes cluster

Apply deployment yaml file directory

cd refly/deploy/kubernetes
kubectl apply -f refly-deployment.yaml

Finally, you can access the Refly application in http://${HOST_IP}:5700 (http://${HOST_IP}:30001 in Kubernetes), where ${HOST_IP} is the IP address of the host machine.

INFO

If you cannot access the Refly application, please check the following:

• The HOST_IP is correct.
• The application is running properly. If not, jump to Troubleshooting.
• The port 5700(30001) is not being blocked by any application firewall. Check this especially if you are using a cloud server.

Start Using Refly

To start using self-deployed version of Refly, first register an account with your email and password.

After entrance, you can configure the providers and models you want to use. Click on the account icon in the left bottom corner and select Settings.

Add your first provider:

Add your first chat model:

Configure embedding and reranker model:

INFO

Embedding model is necessary for the knowledge base retrieval. Reranker model is optional and can be used to rerank the results of the search.

Happy chatting!

Upgrade Guide

To upgrade to the latest stable version, you can pull the latest image and restart the containers:

docker compose pull
docker compose down
docker compose up -d --remove-orphans

If you run into any issues, please refer to the Troubleshooting section.

Troubleshooting

If the application fails to function properly, you can try the following steps:

1. Run docker ps --filter name=refly_ | grep -v 'healthy' to identify unhealthy containers (whose status is not healthy).
2. Run docker logs <container_id> to get more information about the unhealthy container.
3. If the unhealthy container is refly_api, you can first try to run docker restart refly_api to restart the container.
4. For others, you can search for the cause of error messages in the container's logs.

If the issue persists, you can raise an issue in our GitHub repository, or contact us in our Discord Server.