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Vultr profile image Sanskriti Harmukh
Sanskriti Harmukh for Vultr

Posted on with Aashish Chaurasiya • Originally published at docs.vultr.com

Deploying LibreChat Open-Source AI Chat Platform on Ubuntu 24.04

#ai #docker #devops #selfhosted

LibreChat is an open-source, ChatGPT-style web UI that supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, local OpenAI-compatible endpoints, and more — with MongoDB-backed conversation history and Meilisearch-powered search. This guide deploys LibreChat using its official Compose manifest plus a Traefik override for automatic HTTPS. By the end, you'll have LibreChat running with a registration page and multi-provider chat at your domain over HTTPS.

Clone LibreChat and Prepare the Environment

1. Clone the LibreChat repository and check out a stable tag:

$ git clone https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat.git
$ cd LibreChat
$ git checkout tags/v0.8.3
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2. Find the Meilisearch data directory name pinned by this release:

$ grep -o 'meili_data_v[0-9.]*' docker-compose.yml | head -1
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3. Create the required data directories (replace meili_data_v1.35.1 if the previous command printed a different name):

$ mkdir -p data-node images logs meili_data_v1.35.1 uploads
$ sudo chown -R 1000:1000 meili_data_v1.35.1
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4. Copy the env template and uncomment the UID/GID lines:

$ cp .env.example .env
$ nano .env
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UID=1000
GID=1000
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Override the Compose Stack with Traefik

1. Create a Compose override that adds Traefik and wires the API to it:

$ nano docker-compose.override.yml
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services:
  api:
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.librechat.rule=Host(`librechat.example.com`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.librechat.entrypoints=websecure"
      - "traefik.http.routers.librechat.tls.certresolver=leresolver"
      - "traefik.http.services.librechat.loadbalancer.server.port=3080"
    volumes:
      - ./librechat.yaml:/app/librechat.yaml

  traefik:
    image: traefik:v3.6.10
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro"
      - "./letsencrypt:/letsencrypt"
    command:
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false"
      - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"
      - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.to=websecure"
      - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.scheme=https"
      - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.permanent=true"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.httpchallenge=true"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.httpchallenge.entrypoint=web"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.email=admin@example.com"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.leresolver.acme.storage=/letsencrypt/acme.json"
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2. Create an empty LibreChat configuration file (mounted by the override):

$ touch librechat.yaml
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Start the Stack

1. Bring everything up:

$ docker compose up -d
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Compose starts the LibreChat API, MongoDB, Meilisearch, and Traefik. Traefik requests a TLS certificate from Let's Encrypt over the HTTP-01 challenge and routes HTTPS to LibreChat on port 3080.

2. Verify the containers are running:

$ docker compose ps
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3. Tail the logs:

$ docker compose logs --tail=50
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You should see MongoDB initialize, Meilisearch start, Traefik register the route, and the LibreChat API listening on port 3080.

Register and Sign In

1. Open the registration page in a browser:

https://librechat.example.com/register
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2. Fill in your name, username, email, and password and click **Continue.**

3. Sign in with the new credentials — the dashboard loads with the model selector and conversation interface.

To enable Google / GitHub / Discord / OpenID Connect sign-up, set ALLOW_SOCIAL_LOGIN=true and ALLOW_SOCIAL_REGISTRATION=true in .env and restart the stack.

Next Steps

LibreChat is running and served securely over HTTPS. From here you can:

  • Plug in API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, Gemini, or OpenRouter in .env
  • Point LibreChat at a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Ollama, LocalAI) via librechat.yaml
  • Enable file uploads, RAG, and image generation through the dashboard settings

For the full guide with additional tips, visit the original article on Vultr Docs.

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