NovaGallery Container Image

Unofficial container image of novafacile/novagallery.

Powered by novafacile

1. Features

This container image packages NovaGallery on top of openSUSE Leap and provides an out-of-the-box deployment experience with minimal configuration.

What it does:

• Builds the Apache and PHP environment required by NovaGallery.
• Allows users to adjust the url in site.php and the Apache ServerName in the vhost configuration file by setting environment variables at container runtime.
• Supports generating addons.php at container runtime, including Password Protection, Robots Meta Tag, and the basic switch for novaGallery Pro.
• Automatically generates a password hash for Password Protection when private mode is enabled.

This image is intended to be simple and practical:

• If the required config files do not exist yet, the container generates them at startup.
• If a custom site.php, addons.php, or Apache vhost configuration is already present, the container will not overwrite it.
• This makes it possible to start with environment variables first, and later switch to bind-mounted custom configuration files if you need more control.

To be more specific:

• Environment variables only affect the initial generation of configuration files.
• If the files already exist inside the container, or are bind-mounted by the user, the container will not overwrite them.
• Runtime boolean addon-related environment variables are validated before config generation.

To understand how this actually works, please read start.sh.

2. Startup

Pull the container image:

podman pull ghcr.io/jayhsu397/novagallery:latest

2-1. Command Line

Minimal startup command
Visit the gallery at http://127.0.0.1:8000

podman run -p 8000:80 \
  -v /path/to/photos:/var/www/novagallery-free/galleries:z \
  ghcr.io/jayhsu397/novagallery:latest

This is the simplest way to start the container.

Notes:

• The gallery content should be mounted into /var/www/novagallery-free/galleries.
• Without an additional storage mount, cache-related files will remain inside the container filesystem.
• For long-term use, mounting the storage directory is recommended.

Recommended startup command with persistent storage, custom URL settings, and private mode (password mode) enabled:

podman run -p your-port:80 \
  -v /path/to/photos:/var/www/novagallery-free/galleries:z \
  -v /path/to/storage:/var/www/novagallery-free/storage:z \
  -e SERVER_NAME=your-ip-or-domain \
  -e URL=http://your-ip-or-domain:your-port \
  -e ADDONS_PRIVATE_MODE_ENABLE=true \
  -e PASSWORD=your-password \
  ghcr.io/jayhsu397/novagallery:latest

This is the more practical setup for normal self-hosting use.

Notes:

• SERVER_NAME is used for the Apache vhost configuration.
• URL is written into NovaGallery's site.php.
• When ADDONS_PRIVATE_MODE_ENABLE=true, PASSWORD must also be provided if addons.php does not already exist.
• The password itself is not written directly into addons.php; a password hash is generated instead.
• If your own addons.php is already bind-mounted or already exists in the container, the container will not regenerate it.

If you want to explicitly disable search engine indexing through the built-in addon, you may additionally set:

-e ADDONS_ROBOTS_META_TAG_ENABLE=true \
-e ADDONS_ROBOTS_META_TAG_ALLOW_INDEX=false

You may also enable the novaGallery Pro entry in addons.php by setting:

-e ADDONS_NOVAGALLERY_PRO_ENABLE=true

Please note that addon-related boolean values must use true or false.

2-2. Quadlet

If you use systemd as your init system and want the container to start on boot, Quadlet may satisfy your needs.

Example with private mode enabled, placed in $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/novagallery.container

[Unit]
Description=Novagallery Web Image Gallery
Wants=network.target
After=network.target

[Container]
Image=ghcr.io/jayhsu397/novagallery:latest
PublishPort=your-port:80
Volume=/path/to/photos:/var/www/novagallery-free/galleries:z
Volume=/path/to/storage:/var/www/novagallery-free/storage:z
Environment=SERVER_NAME=your-ip-or-domain
Environment=URL=http://your-ip-or-domain:your-port
Environment=ADDONS_PRIVATE_MODE_ENABLE=true
Environment=PASSWORD=your-password
AutoUpdate=registry
LogDriver=journald

[Service]
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Remember to run the commands below after configuring your Quadlet file:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start novagallery

3. Environment Variables

Name	Description
SERVER_NAME	The ServerName used in the Apache vhost configuration
URL	The site URL written into /var/www/novagallery-free/config/site.php
ADDONS_PRIVATE_MODE_ENABLE	Enables the built-in Password Protection addon in addons.php
PASSWORD	The plain password used to generate the password hash automatically when private mode is enabled
ADDONS_ROBOTS_META_TAG_ENABLE	Enables the built-in Robots Meta Tag addon in addons.php
ADDONS_ROBOTS_META_TAG_ALLOW_INDEX	Controls whether search engines are allowed to index the gallery when Robots Meta Tag is enabled
ADDONS_NOVAGALLERY_PRO_ENABLE	Enables the novaGallery Pro entry in addons.php

Additional notes:

• Boolean variables must use true or false.
• The startup script normalizes addon-related boolean values to lowercase before validation.
• PASSWORD is only required when private mode is enabled and addons.php still needs to be generated.
• These variables are meant for initial config generation, not for rewriting existing config files on every startup.

4. Volumes

Path inside container	Purpose
/var/www/novagallery-free/galleries	Stores photo galleries
/var/www/novagallery-free/storage	Stores cache files that help accelerate photo loading when you restart the gallery

Notes:

• Mounting galleries is normally required if you want your photo data to live outside the container.
• Mounting storage is strongly recommended if you want cache-related data to persist across container recreation or restart.
• On SELinux-enabled systems, keep the :z or :Z suffix on bind mounts.

5. Extended Features and Configurations

This image provides a basic environment based on the official examples.

If you need more customized features, please visit the source repo of NovaGallery and bind your own configuration file into the container.

6. License

This repository is a packaging project.

• My original packaging files, including Containerfile and start.sh, are licensed under MIT.
• The packaged upstream software, NovaGallery, is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later.
• As a result, this repository should not be understood as MIT-only.