Install on a dedicated server or fresh container

[MegaV0lt]

What it reads on the 'Installation' page:

Install on a dedicated server or fresh container

BBS is designed to be the only application on the server or container it runs on. It manages its own MySQL/MariaDB, ClickHouse, Apache, SSH daemon, system users (bbs-*), and cron jobs. Installing it alongside an existing workload (another app, a shared MySQL, an existing Apache, etc.) will break both.

    Standard install: use a fresh Ubuntu 22.04+ VM or cloud instance
    Docker install: use a dedicated container with its own data volume — don't share the volume or mount system directories from another app

If you want to back up an existing server to BBS, install the agent on that server — not the server itself. The agent is a tiny Python daemon that pushes backups to your BBS instance.

I have installed bbs on Debian 13 alongside my other services, because i want to avoid wasting resources. There are already running Apache2, MariaDB, SSH Daemon. I use it at home for personal use only and buying an extra hardware server is overkill.

I have the installation running since beginning of April 2026 and can not see any disadvantage.

A home server use case should also be considered to be added to the 'Install' page.

In my opinion the install script should also support Debian, because it is similar to Ubuntu (Based on Debian) and i do not see an reason to waste resources on home server. I also have Nextcloud running and it is not interfering.

The warning that running it alongside other services will break everything is a little bit harsh.

So at least on Debian it should be supported too. And pleas someone can explain what will break and why?

[marcpope]

This is designed to be an enterprise backup solution with many backup clients. While users are free to install however they want, that is not the supported setup. You can easily run it in a Docker container if you want to run it on the same server. It does run fine in Debian. Since there are a lot of services that BBS relies on such as MySQL, ClickHouse, Apache, PHP, plus SSH key management, there's a lot of potential for things to get in the way and make it stop working so I do not recommend doing so.