This tutorial will guide you through installing Open WebUI connected to a PostgreSQL database (with the "vector" extension) and an Olama server.

He also explains how to install caddy, docling and glances It uses Docker images and stores data on disk in separate directories within /var/lib/owebui.

• Add ppa to your system

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sgallet/open-webui-tools

  sudo apt update

• Remove Docker installed by Ubuntu

  sudo apt remove $(dpkg --get-selections docker.io docker-compose docker-compose-v2 docker-doc podman-docker containerd runc | cut -f1)

• Install dependency package.

  This will add the Docker, AMD Container Toolkit and NVIDIA Container Toolkit APT sources to your system.

  This package must be installed separately before installing other packages.

  sudo apt install open-webui-deps

• Now you can installs main components.

  sudo apt install open-webui

  Check status

  sudo owebui status

    open-webui-postgresql : activating
    open-webui-ollama : activating
    open-webui-app : inactive
  

• Configure.

  Modify the Docker images and configuration settings according to your hardware and needs.

  You can edit the files open-webui-app.conf, open-webui-ollama.conf, open-webui-postgresql.conf directly or put your changes in open-webui-local.conf(this file has priority and is recommended) in /etc/open-webui.

  You can define environment variable to pass to docker container by prefixing them with (service)_. For example, to change the logging level for the Open WebUI application, set app_GLOBAL_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING

  Look at documentations for environment Variables of OpenWeb UI, Ollama and Postgresql

• Update and start.

  Update your installation. Following command will download all docker images and models defined in configuration.

  sudo owebui update --force --models --restart

    Update POSTGRES_IMAGE for open-webui-postgresql
    Image pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie not found. Download it
    Id for pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie : 'sha256:cdc8b3de66a0fbffceef90077fde8845a2346034ad8f309f4022a84039fed955
    Service open-webui-postgresql restarted after update
  
    Update OLLAMA_IMAGE for open-webui-ollama
    Image ollama/ollama not found. Download it
    Id for ollama/ollama : 'sha256:f2de8ed54c7b02ee05e42abaa454978c76fb552a883877b37588ebb62f31e41a
    Service open-webui-ollama restarted after update
  
    Install ollama models
    Install model llama3.2
  
    Update OWEBUI_IMAGE for open-webui-app
    Image ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:cuda not found. Download it
    Id for ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:cuda : 'sha256:a301ed36e18a3507ec4f6edcdbff67bc7ef7a9f07824ac4c240799371dc75dfe
    Service open-webui-app restarted after update
  

• That's all

  All services should be operational

  sudo owebui status

    open-webui-postgresql : active
    open-webui-ollama : active
    open-webui-app : active
  

  You can now connect to http://127.0.0.1:8080

• Automatic update of the docker images

  You can enable them using :

  sudo owebui update-enable

    Started open-webui-postgresql-update timer
    Started open-webui-ollama-update timer
    Started open-webui-app-update timer
  

  And check status using :

  sudo owebui update-status

    open-webui-postgresql : active (inactive) - Last run at Sun 2026-03-08 03:18:48 CET; 30s ago
    open-webui-ollama : active (inactive) - Last run at Sun 2026-03-08 03:18:48 CET; 30s ago
    open-webui-app : active (inactive) - Last run at Sun 2026-03-08 03:18:48 CET; 30s ago
  

• If you plan to connect from outside, it is recommended to use a frontend like Caddy.

  sudo apt install open-webui-caddy

  Update the Caddyfile in /etc/open-webui. {APP_IP} and {APP_PORT} will be replaced with the appropriate values ​​when the service starts.

  If you want to proxy glances server, {GLANCES_IP} and {GLANCES_PORT} will be replaced too.

  You can find more documentation here : https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile

  Download docker image and start service

  sudo owebui update --restart caddy

  Check status

  sudo owebui status

    open-webui-postgresql : active
    open-webui-ollama : active
    open-webui-app : active
    open-webui-caddy : active
  

• If you plan to do OCR, it is possible to install Docling.

  sudo apt install open-webui-docling

  By default, only english language is supported

  If you need other language, add the following conf :

    DOCLING_IMAGE_SRC=ghcr.io/docling-project/docling-serve-cpu:latest
    DOCLING_IMAGE_LANGS="eng,fra,deu"
    DOCLING_IMAGE=open-webui-docling-local
  

  This will update the DOCLING_IMAGE_SRC image adding needed files needed by tesseract for your langs (DOCLING_IMAGE_LANGS) and update your local image (DOCLING_IMAGE).

  Update your system to apply your changes

  sudo owebui update --restart --force docling

  This will create a basic DOCLING_PARAMS environment variable. You can define more complex defining app_DOCLING_PARAMS yourself.

  Check status

  sudo owebui status

    open-webui-postgresql : active
    open-webui-ollama : active
    open-webui-app : active
    open-webui-docling : active
  

• Customize your installation.

  You can change user/group and directories creating a /etc/default/open-webui before installing anything (before owebui-deps). Use the one in sources as a template

  For example :

  sudo vim /etc/default/open-webui

    # Defaults for open-webui
    OWEBUI_USER=owebui
    OWEBUI_GROUP=owebui
    OWEBUI_HOME=/home/owebui
    OWEBUI_APP=/home/owebui/app
    OWEBUI_OLLAMA=/home/owebui/ollama
    OWEBUI_CADDY=/home/owebui/caddy
    OWEBUI_POSTGRESQL=/home/owebui/postgresql
    OWEBUI_SHARE=/home/owebui/share
    OWEBUI_NAME="Open WebUI"
  

  After installing installinf owebui-deps, create /etc/open-webui/open-webui-local.conf

  For example :

  sudo vim /etc/default/open-webui

    # Local configuration for open-webui
    # You can overwrite all configutation parameters in this file
    # Add environment variables here
  
    app_DEFAULT_LOCALE=fr
    app_PDF_EXTRACT_IMAGES=true
    app_RAG_TEXT_SPLITTER=token
    app_CHUNK_SIZE=1024
    app_CHUNK_OVERLAP=200
    app_CHUNK_MIN_SIZE_TARGET=500
    app_RAG_TOP_K=10
    app_ENABLE_RAG_HYBRID_SEARCH=true
    app_RAG_EMBEDDING_MODEL=BAAI/bge-m3
    app_RAG_RELEVANCE_THRESHOLD=0.3
    app_RAG_RERANKING_MODEL=BAAI/bge-reranker-v2-m3
    app_API_KEYS=true
  
    OLLAMA_MODELS=llama3.2
  
    DOCLING_IMAGE_SRC=ghcr.io/docling-project/docling-serve-cpu:latest
    DOCLING_IMAGE_LANGS="eng,fra,deu"
    DOCLING_IMAGE=open-webui-docling-local
    DOCLING_DEVICE=
  
    OWEBUI_IMAGE=ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main-slim
    OWEBUI_DEVICE=
  

• You can monitor resources on your hosts with open-webui-glances

  Look at https://github.com/nicolargo/glances for more informations

  sudo apt install open-webui-glances

  sudo owebui update --force --restart glances

  Check status

  sudo owebui status

    open-webui-postgresql : active
    open-webui-ollama : active
    open-webui-app : active
    open-webui-glances : active
  

  And connect to http://127.0.0.1:61208