Admin guide
Install and maintain a Catch server with Docker.
Your Catch server serves the web app and API, stores accounts and notes in Postgres, and keeps attachment files on disk. Electric streams each signed-in account's changes through Catch's authenticated proxy. The public documentation site is separate and is not installed on your server.
This guide assumes you know how to run Docker Compose. Commands use a Linux shell and a standalone deployment directory; you do not need a source checkout or Node.js on the host.
- Follow the installation guide and keep the first-account setup private.
- Configure HTTPS and the reverse proxy.
- Create the admin account and invite people.
- Configure backups and test a restore.
- Review configuration, security and updates.
When something fails, use Troubleshooting. For lost data or a bad update, use Restore and recovery.
Each account's data is private from other ordinary accounts unless the owner shares a note. Administrators control membership and whole-server backups. Ordinary notes and files are readable with database, disk or backup access. The vault encrypts notes and files on the user's devices; server backups keep that content encrypted. See Security for the boundaries of each.
Contributor instructions remain in the repository's development guide. You do not need to configure release signing, CI or Git tags to run published images.