How to use this image

All examples in this guide use the public image. If you've mirrored the repository for your own use (for example, to your Docker Hub namespace), update your commands to reference the mirrored image instead of the public one.

For example:

• Public image: dhi.io/vaultwarden:1
• Mirrored image: <your-namespace>/dhi-vaultwarden:1

For the examples, you must first use docker login dhi.io to authenticate to the registry to pull the images.

The unqualified 1 tag is the Debian image. That line is also tagged 1-debian and 1-debian13, and with the minor and patch version of the Debian package (for example 1.37 and 1.37-debian13). The Alpine 3.24 image does not publish the unqualified 1 tag. It is tagged 1-alpine, 1-alpine3.24, and with its own minor and patch version. Development tags add -dev, for example 1-dev and 1-alpine3.24-dev.

Vaultwarden is an unofficial Bitwarden-compatible password server written in Rust, with the web vault included. Configuration beyond this quick start is in the upstream project at github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden⁠. This image replaces vaultwarden/server.

Bitwarden is a trademark of Bitwarden Inc. Vaultwarden is unofficial and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Bitwarden Inc.

This listing is prepared by Docker. All third-party product names, logos, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used solely for identification. Docker claims no interest in those marks, and no affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement is implied.

Start a Vaultwarden image

The image has an empty entrypoint and its command is /start.sh. Starting a container with no extra arguments runs that script. Arguments placed after the image name replace /start.sh. They are not passed to the server. The working directory is /. /start.sh is the startup script, /vaultwarden is the server binary, and /web-vault is the web vault. The server looks for the vault in the relative directory web-vault/.

The server listens on port 80 inside the container. The vaultwarden binary has the file capability cap_net_bind_service=eip, so uid 65532 can bind that port. Publish a host port onto container port 80, for example -p 8080:80. Do not move the process to another port unless you also set ROCKET_PORT to that same port.

/data must exist and be writable by uid 65532, the user the runtime image runs as. This image does not declare a volume. Unlike vaultwarden/server, it still starts when /data is not a mount, and then the database lives only in the container and is lost when the container is removed. Bind-mount a host directory on /data, and give that directory to uid 65532. If the directory is not writable by that user, the server exits because it cannot create its key and database.

This image has no Docker healthcheck and no /healthcheck.sh. Probe GET /alive, which returns HTTP 200 with Content-Type: application/json. GET /api/version returns a JSON string of the server version. GET / returns HTTP 200 text/html, and the page references vaultwarden.css.

Run the server

$ mkdir -p vaultwarden-data
$ sudo chown 65532:65532 vaultwarden-data
$ docker run -d --name vaultwarden \
  -p 8080:80 \
  -v "$(pwd)/vaultwarden-data:/data" \
  dhi.io/vaultwarden:1

The curl commands retry while the process is still opening port 80.

$ curl -fsS --retry 10 --retry-delay 1 --retry-all-errors -D - -o /dev/null http://127.0.0.1:8080/alive
$ curl -fsS --retry 10 --retry-delay 1 --retry-all-errors http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/version
$ curl -fsS --retry 10 --retry-delay 1 --retry-all-errors http://127.0.0.1:8080/ | grep -o vaultwarden.css

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080/⁠ for the web vault.

Print the version

$ docker run --rm --entrypoint /vaultwarden dhi.io/vaultwarden:1 --version

The command prints a Vaultwarden line with the server version and a Web-Vault line.

Environment variables

These variables are already set in the image. Change ROCKET_PORT only when you also change the port the process binds.

Development variant

A tag that ends in -dev runs as root and includes bash. The runtime image does not include bash.

$ docker run --rm --entrypoint bash dhi.io/vaultwarden:1-dev -c 'id -u'

The command prints 0.

Image variants

Docker Hardened Images come in different variants depending on their intended use. Image variants are identified by their tag.

• Runtime variants are designed to run your application in production. These images are intended to be used either directly or as the FROM image in the final stage of a multi-stage build. These images typically:

  • Run as a nonroot user
  • Do not include a shell or a package manager
  • Contain only the minimal set of libraries needed to run the app

• Build-time variants typically include dev in the tag name and are intended for use in the first stage of a multi-stage Dockerfile. These images typically:

  • Run as the root user
  • Include a shell and package manager
  • Are used to build or compile applications

To view the image variants and get more information about them, select the Tags tab for this repository, and then select a tag.

Migrate to a Docker Hardened Image

To migrate your application to a Docker Hardened Image, you must update your Dockerfile. At minimum, you must update the base image in your existing Dockerfile to a Docker Hardened Image. This and a few other common changes are listed in the following table of migration notes.

The following steps outline the general migration process.

1. Find hardened images for your app.

   A hardened image may have several variants. Inspect the image tags and find the image variant that meets your needs.

2. Update the base image in your Dockerfile.

   Update the base image in your application's Dockerfile to the hardened image you found in the previous step. For framework images, this is typically going to be an image tagged as dev because it has the tools needed to install packages and dependencies.

3. For multi-stage Dockerfiles, update the runtime image in your Dockerfile.

   To ensure that your final image is as minimal as possible, you should use a multi-stage build. All stages in your Dockerfile should use a hardened image. While intermediary stages will typically use images tagged as dev, your final runtime stage should use a non-dev image variant.

4. Install additional packages

   Docker Hardened Images contain minimal packages in order to reduce the potential attack surface. You may need to install additional packages in your Dockerfile. Inspect the image variants to identify which packages are already installed.

   Only images tagged as dev typically have package managers. You should use a multi-stage Dockerfile to install the packages. Install the packages in the build stage that uses a dev image. Then, if needed, copy any necessary artifacts to the runtime stage that uses a non-dev image.

   For Alpine-based images, you can use apk to install packages. For Debian-based images, you can use apt-get to install packages.

Troubleshooting migration

The following are common issues that you may encounter during migration.

General debugging

The hardened images intended for runtime don't contain a shell nor any tools for debugging. The recommended method for debugging applications built with Docker Hardened Images is to use Docker Debug⁠ to attach to these containers. Docker Debug provides a shell, common debugging tools, and lets you install other tools in an ephemeral, writable layer that only exists during the debugging session.

Permissions

By default image variants intended for runtime, run as the nonroot user. Ensure that necessary files and directories are accessible to the nonroot user. You may need to copy files to different directories or change permissions so your application running as the nonroot user can access them.

Privileged ports

Non-dev hardened images run as a nonroot user by default. As a result, applications in these images can't bind to privileged ports (below 1024) when running in Kubernetes or in Docker Engine versions older than 20.10. To avoid issues, configure your application to listen on port 1025 or higher inside the container, even if you map it to a lower port on the host. For example, docker run -p 80:8080 my-image will work because the port inside the container is 8080, and docker run -p 80:81 my-image won't work because the port inside the container is 81.

No shell

By default, image variants intended for runtime don't contain a shell. Use dev images in build stages to run shell commands and then copy any necessary artifacts into the runtime stage. In addition, use Docker Debug to debug containers with no shell.

Entry point

Docker Hardened Images may have different entry points than images such as Docker Official Images. Use docker inspect to inspect entry points for Docker Hardened Images and update your Dockerfile if necessary.