ntfy/docs/install.md

Installing ntfy

The ntfy CLI allows you to publish messages, subscribe to topics as well as to self-host your own ntfy server. It's all pretty straight forward. Just install the binary, package or Docker image, configure it and run it. Just like any other software. No fuzz.

!!! info The following steps are only required if you want to self-host your own ntfy server or you want to use the ntfy CLI. If you just want to send messages using ntfy.sh, you don't need to install anything. You can just use curl.

General steps

The ntfy server comes as a statically linked binary and is shipped as tarball, deb/rpm packages and as a Docker image. We support amd64, armv7 and arm64.

1. Install ntfy using one of the methods described below
2. Then (optionally) edit /etc/ntfy/server.yml for the server (Linux only, see configuration or sample server.yml)
3. Or (optionally) create/edit ~/.config/ntfy/client.yml (or /etc/ntfy/client.yml, see sample client.yml)

To run the ntfy server, then just run ntfy serve (or systemctl start ntfy when using the deb/rpm). To send messages, use ntfy publish. To subscribe to topics, use ntfy subscribe (see subscribing via CLI for details).

Linux binaries

Please check out the releases page for binaries and deb/rpm packages.

=== "x86_64/amd64" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_x86_64.tar.gz tar zxvf ntfy_1.29.1_linux_x86_64.tar.gz sudo cp -a ntfy_1.29.1_linux_x86_64/ntfy /usr/bin/ntfy sudo mkdir /etc/ntfy && sudo cp ntfy_1.29.1_linux_x86_64/{client,server}/*.yml /etc/ntfy sudo ntfy serve

=== "armv6" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv6.tar.gz tar zxvf ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv6.tar.gz sudo cp -a ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv6/ntfy /usr/bin/ntfy sudo mkdir /etc/ntfy && sudo cp ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv6/{client,server}/*.yml /etc/ntfy sudo ntfy serve

=== "armv7/armhf" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv7.tar.gz tar zxvf ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv7.tar.gz sudo cp -a ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv7/ntfy /usr/bin/ntfy sudo mkdir /etc/ntfy && sudo cp ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv7/{client,server}/*.yml /etc/ntfy sudo ntfy serve

=== "arm64" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_arm64.tar.gz tar zxvf ntfy_1.29.1_linux_arm64.tar.gz sudo cp -a ntfy_1.29.1_linux_arm64/ntfy /usr/bin/ntfy sudo mkdir /etc/ntfy && sudo cp ntfy_1.29.1_linux_arm64/{client,server}/*.yml /etc/ntfy sudo ntfy serve

Debian/Ubuntu repository

Installation via Debian repository:

=== "x86_64/amd64" bash sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings curl -fsSL https://archive.heckel.io/apt/pubkey.txt | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/archive.heckel.io.gpg sudo apt install apt-transport-https sudo sh -c "echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/archive.heckel.io.gpg] https://archive.heckel.io/apt debian main' \ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archive.heckel.io.list" sudo apt update sudo apt install ntfy sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "armv7/armhf" bash sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings curl -fsSL https://archive.heckel.io/apt/pubkey.txt | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/archive.heckel.io.gpg sudo apt install apt-transport-https sudo sh -c "echo 'deb [arch=armhf signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/archive.heckel.io.gpg] https://archive.heckel.io/apt debian main' \ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archive.heckel.io.list" sudo apt update sudo apt install ntfy sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "arm64" bash sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings curl -fsSL https://archive.heckel.io/apt/pubkey.txt | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/archive.heckel.io.gpg sudo apt install apt-transport-https sudo sh -c "echo 'deb [arch=arm64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/archive.heckel.io.gpg] https://archive.heckel.io/apt debian main' \ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archive.heckel.io.list" sudo apt update sudo apt install ntfy sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

Manually installing the .deb file:

=== "x86_64/amd64" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i ntfy_*.deb sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "armv6" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv6.deb sudo dpkg -i ntfy_*.deb sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "armv7/armhf" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv7.deb sudo dpkg -i ntfy_*.deb sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "arm64" bash wget https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_arm64.deb sudo dpkg -i ntfy_*.deb sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

Fedora/RHEL/CentOS

=== "x86_64/amd64" bash sudo rpm -ivh https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_amd64.rpm sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "armv6" bash sudo rpm -ivh https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv6.rpm sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "armv7/armhf" bash sudo rpm -ivh https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_armv7.rpm sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

=== "arm64" bash sudo rpm -ivh https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_linux_arm64.rpm sudo systemctl enable ntfy sudo systemctl start ntfy

Arch Linux

ntfy can be installed using an AUR package. You can use an AUR helper like paru, yay or others to download, build and install ntfy and keep it up to date.

paru -S ntfysh-bin

Alternatively, run the following commands to install ntfy manually:

curl https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/ntfysh-bin.tar.gz | tar xzv
cd ntfysh-bin
makepkg -si

NixOS / Nix

ntfy is packaged in nixpkgs as ntfy-sh. It can be installed by adding the package name to the configuration file and calling nixos-rebuild. Alternatively, the following command can be used to install ntfy in the current user environment:

nix-env -iA ntfy-sh

NixOS also supports declarative setup of the ntfy server.

macOS

The ntfy CLI (ntfy publish and ntfy subscribe only) is supported on macOS as well. To install, please download the tarball, extract it and place it somewhere in your PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin/ntfy).

If run as root, ntfy will look for its config at /etc/ntfy/client.yml. For all other users, it'll look for it at ~/Library/Application Support/ntfy/client.yml (sample included in the tarball).

curl -L https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases/download/v1.29.1/ntfy_1.29.1_macOS_all.tar.gz > ntfy_1.29.1_macOS_all.tar.gz
tar zxvf ntfy_1.29.1_macOS_all.tar.gz
sudo cp -a ntfy_1.29.1_macOS_all/ntfy /usr/local/bin/ntfy
mkdir ~/Library/Application\ Support/ntfy 
cp ntfy_1.29.1_macOS_all/client/client.yml ~/Library/Application\ Support/ntfy/client.yml
ntfy --help

!!! info There is a GitHub issue about making ntfy installable via Homebrew. I'll eventually get to that, but I'd also love if somebody else stepped up to do it. Also, you can build and run the ntfy server on macOS as well, though I don't officially support that. Check out the build instructions for details.

Windows

The ntfy CLI (ntfy publish and ntfy subscribe only) is supported on Windows as well. To install, please download the latest ZIP, extract it and place the ntfy.exe binary somewhere in your %Path%.

The default path for the client config file is at %AppData%\ntfy\client.yml (not created automatically, sample in the ZIP file).

Also available in Scoop's Main repository:

scoop install ntfy

!!! info There is currently no installer for Windows, and the binary is not signed. If this is desired, please create a GitHub issue to let me know.

Docker

The ntfy image is available for amd64, armv6, armv7 and arm64. It should be pretty straight forward to use.

The server exposes its web UI and the API on port 80, so you need to expose that in Docker. To use the persistent message cache, you also need to map a volume to /var/cache/ntfy. To change other settings, you should map /etc/ntfy, so you can edit /etc/ntfy/server.yml.

!!! info Note that the Docker image does not contain a /etc/ntfy/server.yml file. If you'd like to use a config file, please manually create one outside the image and map it as a volume, e.g. via -v /etc/ntfy:/etc/ntfy. You may use the server.yml file on GitHub as a template.

Basic usage (no cache or additional config):

docker run -p 80:80 -it binwiederhier/ntfy serve

With persistent cache (configured as command line arguments):

docker run \
  -v /var/cache/ntfy:/var/cache/ntfy \
  -p 80:80 \
  -it \
  binwiederhier/ntfy \
    serve \
    --cache-file /var/cache/ntfy/cache.db

With other config options, timezone, and non-root user (configured via /etc/ntfy/server.yml, see configuration for details):

docker run \
  -v /etc/ntfy:/etc/ntfy \
  -e TZ=UTC \
  -p 80:80 \
  -u UID:GID \
  -it \
  binwiederhier/ntfy \
  serve

Using docker-compose with non-root user:

version: "2.1"

services:
  ntfy:
    image: binwiederhier/ntfy
    container_name: ntfy
    command:
      - serve
    environment:
      - TZ=UTC    # optional: set desired timezone
    user: UID:GID # optional: replace with your own user/group or uid/gid
    volumes:
      - /var/cache/ntfy:/var/cache/ntfy
      - /etc/ntfy:/etc/ntfy
    ports:
      - 80:80
    restart: unless-stopped

If using a non-root user when running the docker version, be sure to chown the server.yml, user.db, and cache.db files to the same uid/gid.

Alternatively, you may wish to build a customized Docker image that can be run with fewer command-line arguments and without delivering the configuration file separately.

FROM binwiederhier/ntfy
COPY server.yml /etc/ntfy/server.yml
ENTRYPOINT ["ntfy", "serve"]

This image can be pushed to a container registry and shipped independently. All that's needed when running it is mapping ntfy's port to a host port.

Kubernetes

The setup for Kubernetes is very similar to that for Docker, and requires a fairly minimal deployment or pod definition to function. There are a few options to mix and match, including a deployment without a cache file, a stateful set with a persistant cache, and a standalone unmanaged pod.

=== "deployment" yaml apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: ntfy spec: selector: matchLabels: app: ntfy template: metadata: labels: app: ntfy spec: containers: - name: ntfy image: binwiederhier/ntfy args: ["serve"] resources: limits: memory: "128Mi" cpu: "500m" ports: - containerPort: 80 name: http volumeMounts: - name: config mountPath: "/etc/ntfy" readOnly: true volumes: - name: config configMap: name: ntfy --- # Basic service for port 80 apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: ntfy spec: selector: app: ntfy ports: - port: 80 targetPort: 80

=== "stateful set" yaml apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: StatefulSet metadata: name: ntfy spec: selector: matchLabels: app: ntfy serviceName: ntfy template: metadata: labels: app: ntfy spec: containers: - name: ntfy image: binwiederhier/ntfy args: ["serve", "--cache-file /var/cache/ntfy/cache.db"] ports: - containerPort: 80 name: http volumeMounts: - name: config mountPath: "/etc/ntfy" readOnly: true volumes: - name: config configMap: name: ntfy volumeClaimTemplates: - metadata: name: cache spec: accessModes: [ "ReadWriteOnce" ] resources: requests: storage: 1Gi

=== "pod" yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: labels: app: ntfy spec: containers: - name: ntfy image: binwiederhier/ntfy args: ["serve"] resources: limits: memory: "128Mi" cpu: "500m" ports: - containerPort: 80 name: http volumeMounts: - name: config mountPath: "/etc/ntfy" readOnly: true volumes: - name: config configMap: name: ntfy

Configuration is relatively straightforward. As an exmaple, a minimal configuration is provided.

=== "resource definition" yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: ntfy data: server.yml: | # Template: https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/blob/main/server/server.yml base-url: https://ntfy.sh

=== "from-file" bash kubectl create configmap ntfy --from-file=server.yml