Overview

You can run and manage your AYON Server instance locally by deploying it on-premises using our ayon-docker repository. It contains everything you need to get an AYON server up and running.

Some knowledge of Docker, Git, and Make (on Linux and Mac) or PowerShell (on Windows) is recommended. However, you can still deploy the server without this expertise, as we've made the AYON deployment process straightforward, requiring only a few commands in the terminal.

• For production environments, Linux is highly recommended. For evaluation purposes, you can use Windows with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

• If you're using a standalone docker-compose script instead of the newer docker compose plugin, be sure to use docker-compose wherever docker compose is mentioned in this tutorial.

Hosting Machine Specifications

We recommend the following starting specifications for the machine used to host your AYON server:

• vCPU: 4

• RAM: 16 GB

• Storage: 100+ GB drive space (Note: Storage capacity should be scalable, as the total capacity required depends on the size and number of your projects.)

However, these requirements highly depend on your actual workload and the volume of interactions with your AYON server (i.e., your studio size).

For example, running the server for basic testing with just one or two users can function with as little as 1 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and up to 50 GB of storage.

Since AYON uses Docker, you can monitor the resources consumed by your server instance using Docker Runtime Metrics and adjust your machine resources accordingly. This is because Docker only uses the resources it needs; if your server requires less than 16 GB of RAM, it will not reserve the entire available amount on your machine.

AYON Local Deployment

To deploy the AYON server, you'll need to clone the ayon-docker repository and use docker compose.

git clone https://github.com/ynput/ayon-docker.git
cd ayon-docker
docker compose up -d --build

After the command is complete, open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:5000/. You'll be prompted to create an admin user and bootstrap your AYON server, which installs the latest pipeline. You can find more information on Updating Pipeline to latest Release. If you only want to use the AYON server as a production tracker, you can skip this bootstrapping step.

Windows

Before running the docker compose command, you need to comment out or delete the following line in the docker-compose.yml file:

- "/etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro"

Once the docker compose command finishes, you can manage your Docker containers (starting, stopping, or restarting the AYON server) through the Docker Desktop app.

Linux

There are no additional notes for Linux.

Mac

The AYON Docker setup uses port 5000 by default. On Mac, this port is often used by the AirPlay Receiver feature, which can cause a "port 5000 is already in use" error.

You have two solutions for this issue:

1. Recommended: Change the Port
   You can set the port to 5001 instead of 5000. This can be done in one of two ways:

   • Hardcode the value: Replace the following lines in your docker-compose.yml file:

         ports: 
           - 5001:5000

   • Set an environment variable: Set AYON_STACK_SERVER_PORT=5001. You can find more details in the AYON Docker configuration documentation.

2. Alternative: Turn off AirPlay Receiver You can disable the AirPlay Receiver feature in your Mac's System Settings by navigating to General > AirDrop & Handoff and toggling AirPlay Receiver off.

After applying either of these solutions, you'll need to rebuild your Docker container by running the docker compose up -d --build command again.

AYON Docker Configuration

You can configure AYON Docker by either modifying the docker-compose.yml file to suit your needs or by using a .env file to set environment variables.

For more information about the available environment variables, please refer to AYON Docker Configuration Options article.

AYON Server Provisioning

The AYON Docker repository offers several ways to configure your AYON server, including:

• Creating demo projects.

• Manually installing and removing add-ons by accessing the addons directory.

• Applying a setup from the settings/template.json file, which includes creating users.

For more information, please refer to AYON Server Provisioning.