to run the cobalt docker package, you need to have docker
and docker-compose
installed and configured.
if you need help with installing docker, follow only the first step of these tutorials by digitalocean:
-
create a folder for cobalt config file, something like this:
mkdir cobalt
-
go to cobalt folder, and create a docker compose config file:
cd cobalt && nano docker-compose.yml
i'm using
nano
in this example, it may not be available in your distro. you can use any other text editor. -
copy and paste the sample config from here for either web or api instance (or both, if you wish) and edit it to your needs. make sure to replace default URLs with your own or cobalt won't work correctly.
-
finally, start the cobalt container (from cobalt directory):
docker compose up -d
if you want your instance to support services that require authentication to view public content, create cookies.json
file in the same directory as docker-compose.yml
. example cookies file can be found here.
cobalt package will update automatically thanks to watchtower.
it's highly recommended to use a reverse proxy (such as nginx) if you want your instance to face the public internet. look up tutorials online.
requirements:
- node.js >= 18
- git
- pnpm
- clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/imputnet/cobalt
. - go to api/src directory:
cd cobalt/api/src
. - install dependencies:
pnpm install
. - create
.env
file in the same directory. - add needed environment variables to
.env
file. onlyAPI_URL
is required to run cobalt.- if you don't know what api url to use for local development, use
http://localhost:9000/
.
- if you don't know what api url to use for local development, use
- run cobalt:
pnpm start
.
nscd
needs to be installed and running so that the ffmpeg-static
binary can resolve DNS (#101):
sudo apt install nscd
sudo service nscd start
variable name | default | example | description |
---|---|---|---|
API_PORT |
9000 |
9000 |
changes port from which api server is accessible. |
API_LISTEN_ADDRESS |
0.0.0.0 |
127.0.0.1 |
changes address from which api server is accessible. if you are using docker, you usually don't need to configure this. |
API_URL |
➖ | https://api.cobalt.tools/ |
changes url from which api server is accessible. REQUIRED TO RUN THE API. |
API_NAME |
unknown |
ams-1 |
api server name that is shown in /api/serverInfo . |
API_EXTERNAL_PROXY |
➖ | http://user:password@127.0.0.1:8080 |
url of the proxy that will be passed to ProxyAgent and used for all external requests. HTTP(S) only. |
CORS_WILDCARD |
1 |
0 |
toggles cross-origin resource sharing. 0 : disabled. 1 : enabled. |
CORS_URL |
not used | https://cobalt.tools |
cross-origin resource sharing url. api will be available only from this url if CORS_WILDCARD is set to 0 . |
COOKIE_PATH |
not used | /cookies.json |
path for cookie file relative to main folder. |
PROCESSING_PRIORITY |
not used | 10 |
changes nice value* for ffmpeg subprocess. available only on unix systems. |
FREEBIND_CIDR |
➖ | 2001:db8::/32 |
IPv6 prefix used for randomly assigning addresses to cobalt requests. only supported on linux systems. see below for more info. |
RATELIMIT_WINDOW |
60 |
120 |
rate limit time window in seconds. |
RATELIMIT_MAX |
20 |
30 |
max requests per time window. requests above this amount will be blocked for the rate limit window duration. |
DURATION_LIMIT |
10800 |
18000 |
max allowed video duration in seconds. |
TUNNEL_LIFESPAN |
90 |
120 |
the duration for which tunnel info is stored in ram, in seconds. |
* the higher the nice value, the lower the priority. read more here.
setting a FREEBIND_CIDR
allows cobalt to pick a random IP for every download and use it for all
requests it makes for that particular download. to use freebind in cobalt, you need to follow its setup instructions first. if you configure this option while running cobalt
in a docker container, you also need to set the API_LISTEN_ADDRESS
env to 127.0.0.1
, and set
network_mode
for the container to host
.