MusicBrainz Server / Setup
Setup from Docker Compose
This method is recommended as it makes install, setup, and maintenance much easier for you, to the cost of a small overhead compared to the size of the database.
It can be used to:
- Replicate the MusicBrainz website/web service/database,
- Test your own app that queries MusicBrainz web service,
- Develop MusicBrainz Server itself.
See MusicBrainz Docker and its release notes.
Setup from source code
This can potentially be a very laborious and time consuming method of getting a functioning MusicBrainz server. Use it only if you cannot use MusicBrainz Docker for some reason (disk space, development, …).
Get a copy of musicbrainz-server from git:
git clone --recursive https://github.com/metabrainz/musicbrainz-server.git musicbrainz-server cd musicbrainz-server
And follow the instructions in the INSTALL file.
Support
The setup process may look daunting, but please don't let this discourage you; the INSTALL is thorough and contains a lot of information, and we are willing to provide assistance. If you have questions about installing, join us in the #metabrainz IRC channel or post a question on the community forum and we will attempt to help you out.
We recommend that you dive in and give it a try - who knows how far you'll get and what you might learn along the way!
Requirements
In order to set up a running MusicBrainz server with the full database you will need:
- A linux box, preferably Ubuntu.
- 60GB+ of free disk space, (if you are a developer and only want the server code and database structure 2GB+ should do, count 6GB+ if you want sample data).
- Git knowledge which will enable you to check out the source code.
- PostgreSQL, Perl, Node.js, and some other dependencies (See all software prerequisites)
As a developer the following knowledge/skills are beneficial:
- Perl and a number of perl modules, PostgreSQL, React/JSX.
- How to compile and install packages from source on a Linux box.
- How to patch existing packages, although we can help you out if you have questions about that.
Note: The server has never been ported to Windows, and we suspect that it would be a fair amount of work to make that happen.
External Links
- MusicBrainz Server on GitHub
- List of MusicBrainz Server updates on the MetaBrainz blog
- List of supplemental instructions on the MetaBrainz blog
- MusicBrainz Docker on GitHub
- List of MusicBrainzB Virtual Machine releases on the MetaBrainz blog
- List of MusicBrainz Docker releases on GitHub