Installation

You can install Semaphore in 4 ways:

See also:

Snap

To install Semaphore via snap, run following command in terminal:

sudo snap install semaphore

Semaphore will be available by URL https://localhost:3000.

But to log in, you should create an admin user. Use the following commands:

sudo snap stop semaphore

sudo semaphore user add --admin \
--login john \
--name=John \
[email protected] \
--password=12345

sudo snap start semaphore

You can check the status of the Semaphore service using the following command:

sudo snap services semaphore

It should print the following table:

Service               Startup  Current  Notes
semaphore.semaphored  enabled  active   -

After installation, you can set up Semaphore via Snap Configuration. Use the following command to see your Semaphore configuration:

sudo snap get semaphore

List of available options you can find in Configuration options reference.

Package manager

Python, Ansible and Git should be installed on your system.

Look into the manual installation on how to set-up your Python/Ansible/Systemd environment!

Download package file from Releases page.

*.deb for Debian and Ubuntu, *.rpm for CentOS and RedHat.

Here are several installation commands, depending on the package manager:

wget https://github.com/semaphoreui/semaphore/releases/\
download/v2.10.43/semaphore_2.10.43_linux_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i semaphore_2.10.43_linux_amd64.deb

Setup Semaphore by using the following command:

semaphore setup

Now you can run Semaphore:

semaphore server --config=./config.json

Semaphore will be available via this URL https://localhost:3000.

Docker

Create a docker-compose.yml file with following content:

services:
  # uncomment this section and comment out the mysql section to use postgres instead of mysql
  #postgres:
    #restart: unless-stopped
    #image: postgres:14
    #hostname: postgres
    #volumes: 
    #  - semaphore-postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    #environment:
    #  POSTGRES_USER: semaphore
    #  POSTGRES_PASSWORD: semaphore
    #  POSTGRES_DB: semaphore
  # if you wish to use postgres, comment the mysql service section below 
  mysql:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: mysql:8.0
    hostname: mysql
    volumes:
      - semaphore-mysql:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD: 'yes'
      MYSQL_DATABASE: semaphore
      MYSQL_USER: semaphore
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: semaphore
  semaphore:
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    image: semaphoreui/semaphore:latest
    environment:
      SEMAPHORE_DB_USER: semaphore
      SEMAPHORE_DB_PASS: semaphore
      SEMAPHORE_DB_HOST: mysql # for postgres, change to: postgres
      SEMAPHORE_DB_PORT: 3306 # change to 5432 for postgres
      SEMAPHORE_DB_DIALECT: mysql # for postgres, change to: postgres
      SEMAPHORE_DB: semaphore
      SEMAPHORE_PLAYBOOK_PATH: /tmp/semaphore/
      SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD: changeme
      SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_NAME: admin
      SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_EMAIL: admin@localhost
      SEMAPHORE_ADMIN: admin
      SEMAPHORE_ACCESS_KEY_ENCRYPTION: gs72mPntFATGJs9qK0pQ0rKtfidlexiMjYCH9gWKhTU=
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_ACTIVATED: 'no' # if you wish to use ldap, set to: 'yes' 
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_HOST: dc01.local.example.com
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_PORT: '636'
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_NEEDTLS: 'yes'
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_DN_BIND: 'uid=bind_user,cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=local,dc=shiftsystems,dc=net'
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_PASSWORD: 'ldap_bind_account_password'
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_DN_SEARCH: 'dc=local,dc=example,dc=com'
      SEMAPHORE_LDAP_SEARCH_FILTER: "(\u0026(uid=%s)(memberOf=cn=ipausers,cn=groups,cn=accounts,dc=local,dc=example,dc=com))"
      TZ: UTC
    depends_on:
      - mysql # for postgres, change to: postgres
volumes:
  semaphore-mysql: # to use postgres, switch to: semaphore-postgres

You must specify following confidential variables:

  • MYSQL_PASSWORD and SEMAPHORE_DB_PASS — password for the MySQL user.
  • SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD — password for the Semaphore's admin user.
  • SEMAPHORE_ACCESS_KEY_ENCRYPTION — key for encrypting access keys in database. It must be generated by using the following command: head -c32 /dev/urandom | base64.

Run the following command to start Semaphore with configured database (MySQL or Postgres):

docker-compose up

Semaphore will be available via the following URL http://localhost:3000.

For more information about the Docker Compose, see the Docker Compose reference.

Installing Additional Python Packages

Some Ansible modules and roles require additional python packages to run. To install additional python packages, create a requirements.txt file and mount it in the /etc/semaphore directory on the container. For example, you could add the following lines to your docker-compose.yml file:

volumes:
  - /path/to/requirements.txt:/etc/semaphore/requirements.txt

The packages specified in the requirements file will be installed when the container starts up.

For more information about Python requirements files, see the Pip Requirements File Format reference

Binary file

Python, Ansible and Git should be installed on your system.

Look into the manual installation on how to set-up your Python/Ansible/Systemd environment!

Download the *.tar.gz for your platform from Releases page. Unpack it and setup Semaphore using the following commands:

download/v2.10.43/semaphore_2.10.43_linux_amd64.tar.gz

tar xf semaphore_2.10.43_linux_amd64.tar.gz

./semaphore setup

Now you can run Semaphore:

./semaphore server --config=./config.json

Semaphore will be available via the following URL https://localhost:3000.

Run as a service

For more detailed information — look into the extended Systemd service documentation.

If you installed Semaphore via a package manager, or by downloading a binary file, you should create the Semaphore service manually.

Create the systemd service file:

Replace /path/to/semaphore and /path/to/config.json to your semaphore and config file path. 
sudo cat > /etc/systemd/system/semaphore.service <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Semaphore Ansible
Documentation=https://github.com/semaphoreui/semaphore
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
ExecStart=/path/to/semaphore server --config=/path/to/config.json
SyslogIdentifier=semaphore
Restart=always
RestartSec=10s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Start the Semaphore service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start semaphore

Check the Semaphore service status:

sudo systemctl status semaphore

To make the Semaphore service auto start:

sudo systemctl enable semaphore