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Installation (Docker)

This is recommended way of installation. This will get you running with the following services on your localhost:

  • Bar Assistant API server
  • Salt Rim web client
  • Meilisearch service for searching and filtering
  • Optional Redis service for caching and sessions

Docker Compose

Docker compose example repository can be found here.

Step 1: Create required files

Docker Compose setup requires a few setup files. First, create the .env file and docker-compose.yml files. The .env file will contain your basic configuration variables.

.env
# Your Meilisearch master key (https://docs.meilisearch.com/learn/getting_started/quick_start.html#securing-meilisearch)
MEILI_MASTER_KEY=masterKey-make-it-long-for-security

# Meilisearch server instance URL
MEILISEARCH_URL=http://localhost:8081

# Bar Assistant server instance URL
API_URL=http://localhost:8082

Then in your docker-compose.yml copy and paste the following.

docker-compose.yml
volumes:
  bar_data:
  meilisearch_data:

services:
  meilisearch:
    image: getmeili/meilisearch:v1.15 # Never use latest tag
    environment:
      - MEILI_NO_ANALYTICS=true
      - MEILI_MASTER_KEY=$MEILI_MASTER_KEY
      - MEILI_ENV=production
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - meilisearch_data:/meili_data
    ports:
      - "8081:7700"

  # Optional, but recommended
  redis:
    image: redis
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
    restart: unless-stopped

  bar-assistant:
    image: barassistant/server:v5
    depends_on:
      - meilisearch
      - redis # Remove if not using redis
    environment:
      - APP_URL=$API_URL
      - MEILISEARCH_KEY=$MEILI_MASTER_KEY
      - MEILISEARCH_HOST=http://meilisearch:7700
      - REDIS_HOST=redis # Remove if not using redis
      - CACHE_DRIVER=redis # Change to "file" if not using redis
      - SESSION_DRIVER=redis # Change to "file" if not using redis
      - ALLOW_REGISTRATION=true
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8082:8080"
    volumes:
      - bar_data:/var/www/cocktails/storage/bar-assistant

  salt-rim:
    image: barassistant/salt-rim:v4
    depends_on:
      - bar-assistant
    environment:
      - API_URL=$API_URL
      - MEILISEARCH_URL=$MEILISEARCH_URL
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"

Info

If you want to use a bind mounts, you need to make sure that the folder is owned by the user that is running the container, in this case 33:33 (www-data). You can do this by running chown -R 33:33 /path/to/folder and then restarting the container.

Warning

If you are using rootless docker and want to use bind mounts, you will need to manually set the correct user permissions on your host folder. In most cases this will be 100032:100032 but it can vary depending on your docker setup. Learn more about this here.

Step 2: Run the stack

Once you have all those files in a directory, you can run everything with docker compose up -d. After everything is up and running you can now access the browser client on URL and port that you defined. By default this will be localhost:8080.

Please, note that it can sometimes take a minute or more (depending on the hardware) for the server to start. You can check your docker logs ($ docker compose logs bar-assistant) for "Application ready" message.

Before you login you need to create a new user, you can do that by clicking register button.

Container images

Bar Assistant is available as a Docker image on Docker Hub and GitHub Container Registry. There is no latest tag, so you need to specify version in the tag. For example:

  • barassistant/server:v4.4.1 - This will pull the exact version
  • barassistant/server:v4.4 - This will pull the latest minor release
  • barassistant/server:v4 - This will pull the latest major release
  • barassistant/server:dev - This will pull the latest development release (unstable and not recommended)

Updating

You can update by pulling the newest images and restarting the stack.

# Pull images
$ docker compose pull
# Run the stack
$ docker compose up -d

Reverse proxy configuration

Currently the recommended setup requires that you proxy 3 services. This can be done with Nginx, Caddy, Traefik, or any other reverse proxy server. Don't forget to update your .env file with the correct URLs.

Path Prefix Stripping Required

When serving Bar Assistant under a subfolder (e.g., /bar), your reverse proxy must strip the path prefix before forwarding requests to the application. Otherwise, you'll receive "Resource not found" errors.

For example, a request to https://yourdomain.com/bar/api/server/version should be forwarded to http://bar-assistant:8080/api/server/version (not /bar/api/server/version).

  • Nginx: Handles this automatically with the trailing slash syntax (location /bar/ → proxy_pass http://backend/;)
  • Traefik: Requires explicit stripPrefix middleware
  • Caddy: Requires uri strip_prefix directive when using subfolders

Nginx config example with subfolders

Here's an example of how to setup nginx configuration that will expose the services as subfolders of your domain. This is useful if you want to run multiple services on the same domain.

nginx.conf
# This assumes that your proxy service is capable of resolving the container hostnames
server {
    server_name bar.mydomain.com;

    location /bar/ {
        # The trailing slashes cause Nginx to automatically strip the /bar prefix
        # Request to /bar/api/version → forwarded as /api/version
        proxy_pass http://bar-assistant:8080/;
    }

    location /search/ {
        # Similarly, /search/indexes → forwarded as /indexes
        proxy_pass http://meilisearch:7700/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://salt-rim:8080/;
    }
}

Nginx config example with subdomains

Here's an example of how to setup nginx configuration that will expose the services as subdomains of your domain. This is useful if you want to run each service on a separate subdomain.

nginx.conf
# This assumes that your proxy service is capable of resolving the container hostnames
server {
  server_name api.example.com;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://bar-assistant:8080/;
  }
}
server {
  server_name search.example.com;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://meilisearch:7700/;
  }
}
server {
  server_name my-bar.example.com;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://salt-rim:8080/;
  }
}

Caddy config example with subdomains

This is an example of Caddyfile configuration that will expose the services as subdomains of your domain. Caddy is a modern web server that automatically handles HTTPS for you.

Caddyfile
# This assumes that your proxy service is capable of resolving the container hostnames
api.example.com {
    reverse_proxy bar-assistant:8080
}
search.example.com {
    reverse_proxy meilisearch:7700
}
my-bar.example.com {
    reverse_proxy salt-rim:8080
}

Traefik config example with subfolders

Here's an example of how to configure Traefik using Docker labels to expose the services as subfolders. Note the required stripPrefix middleware for the Bar Assistant and Meilisearch services.

docker-compose.yml
services:
  bar-assistant:
    image: barassistant/server:v5
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.barassistant.rule=Host(`bar.mydomain.com`) && PathPrefix(`/bar`)"
      # This middleware strips the /bar prefix before forwarding to the container
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.barassistant-stripprefix.stripprefix.prefixes=/bar"
      - "traefik.http.routers.barassistant.middlewares=barassistant-stripprefix"
    # ... other bar-assistant settings ...

  meilisearch:
    image: getmeili/meilisearch:v1.15
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.meilisearch.rule=Host(`bar.mydomain.com`) && PathPrefix(`/search`)"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.meilisearch-stripprefix.stripprefix.prefixes=/search"
      - "traefik.http.routers.meilisearch.middlewares=meilisearch-stripprefix"
    # ... other meilisearch settings ...

  salt-rim:
    image: barassistant/salt-rim:v4
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.saltrim.rule=Host(`bar.mydomain.com`)"
      # No strip prefix needed for root path
    # ... other salt-rim settings ...

Tip

Don't forget to update your .env file with the correct URLs: 

API_URL=https://bar.mydomain.com/bar
MEILISEARCH_URL=https://bar.mydomain.com/search

Traefik config example with subdomains

When using subdomains with Traefik, you don't need to worry about path stripping since each service is at the root of its subdomain.

docker-compose.yml
services:
  bar-assistant:
    image: barassistant/server:v5
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.barassistant-api.rule=Host(`api.example.com`)"
    # ... other bar-assistant settings ...

  meilisearch:
    image: getmeili/meilisearch:v1.15
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.meilisearch.rule=Host(`search.example.com`)"
    # ... other meilisearch settings ...

  salt-rim:
    image: barassistant/salt-rim:v4
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.saltrim.rule=Host(`my-bar.example.com`)"
    # ... other salt-rim settings ...

Tip

Update your .env file: 

API_URL=https://api.example.com
MEILISEARCH_URL=https://search.example.com

Testing your reverse proxy configuration

To verify your reverse proxy is configured correctly:

  1. Test the API server directly: Visit https://yourdomain.com/bar (or your configured path). You should see: "This is your Bar Assistant instance."

  2. Check the API documentation: Visit https://yourdomain.com/bar/docs. You should see the Swagger API documentation page.

  3. Test a specific endpoint: Visit https://yourdomain.com/bar/api/server/version. You should see a JSON response with version information, not a "Resource not found" error.

If any of these tests fail with "Resource not found", double-check that your reverse proxy is stripping the path prefix correctly.