Trilium Notes – Self-Hosted Server Setup

Written by

Blog, Computers, Pen Testing, Security, Servers, Software, Tools

I’ve been looking for a OneNote alternative for a few years now, but haven’t been able to find anything that combines the same basic functionality with a simple, clean interface. As I’m increasingly moving away from Microsoft products, I realized it was time to find a dedicated solution and stick with it. I’m excited to say I think I’ve finally found something that fits the bill.

Requirements for a note-taking solution:

Simple and intuitive interface – Prioritize the workspace area, minimizing unnecessary menus
Clean organization – Must allow for easy management of potentially years’ worth of structured data
Excel at note-taking – The primary focus should be on entering and managing text, headers, tables, lists, etc
Minimal interference – “Features” like automatic capitalization and automatic source formatting can be a nightmare when copying and pasting commands and code
Easily accessible by one user from multiple hosts – I currently keep my OneNote Notebook on a centralized network share, with each host having OneNote installed
Easy server management – If a server is needed, it should be simple to deploy, update, and backup
Privacy – Local storage only, no/minimal data collection
Secure storage – Not required, but nice to have for potentially sensitive information
Open source preferred
Dark mode support

Table of Contents

What Is Trilium Notes?

Trilium Notes is an open-source note-taking solution that allows you to work offline on your desktop, or synchronize your notes with a self-hosted server for convenient, centralized access.

Main site – https://triliumnotes.org/
GitHub – https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium
Docs – https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/

Features

Client & Server

Desktop Clients

Windows, Linux, macOS

Self-Hosted Server

Docker container
Sync & centralized storage
Web client

Application

Beautiful, highly functional interface with dark mode built-in
Fully featured text editor
Easy to navigate and manipulate hierarchical structure
Note labels and relationships
Multiple workspaces
Revision/history
Synchronization (requires server)
Protected/encrypted notes
Automatic local backups (daily, weekly, monthly)
Search
Canvas
Mermaid diagrams
Mind Maps
Web view for sharing notes
Split view
Markdown support
Much more…

Additional Notes

HTTPS is supported, but not enabled by default
Single user design, password only authentication (web client)

Lab Setup

The lab environment I will be using for this post will consist of a single Ubuntu Server virtual machine hosting the Trilium Notes container:

Hostname	vCPU	Memory	HDD	Notes
VMW-L-Notes01	3	4 GB	40 GB	Trilium Notes container IP – 192.168.90.35 DNS – trilium.robwilis.info Low resource requirements

The host has been base prepped, including OS installation, user creation, network configuration, and remote access (SSH).

Server Setup

Docker Installation

Install Docker:

# apt -y install docker.io docker-compose-v2

Trilium Notes Server Installation

Make a home for Trilium:

# mkdir /opt/trilium && cd /opt/trilium

There are several ways to run Trilium with Docker, but I prefer using Docker Compose.

Pull down the Docker Compose configuration:

# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TriliumNext/Trilium/master/docker-compose.yml

Edit the docker-compose.yml:

# nano docker-compose.yml

Make the following modifications:

Change the image tag to :stable
Update ports: to – ‘0.0.0.0:80:8080’
Note the TRILIUM_DATA_DIR

The final docker-compose.yml should look something like this:

# Running `docker-compose up` will create/use the "trilium-data" directory in the user home
# Run `TRILIUM_DATA_DIR=/path/of/your/choice docker-compose up` to set a different directory
# To run in the background, use `docker-compose up -d`
services:
  trilium:
    # Optionally, replace `latest` with a version tag like `v0.90.3`
    # Using `latest` may cause unintended updates to the container
    image: triliumnext/trilium:stable
    # Restart the container unless it was stopped by the user
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - TRILIUM_DATA_DIR=/home/node/trilium-data
    ports:
      # By default, Trilium will be available at http://localhost:8080
      # It will also be accessible at http://<host-ip>:8080
      # You might want to limit this with something like Docker Networks, reverse proxies, or>
      # however be aware that using UFW is known to not work with default Docker installation>
      # https://docs.docker.com/engine/network/packet-filtering-firewalls/#docker-and-ufw
      - '0.0.0.0:80:8080'
    volumes:
      # Unless TRILIUM_DATA_DIR is set, the data will be stored in the "trilium-data" directo>
      # This can also be changed with by replacing the line below with `- /path/of/your/choic>
      - ${TRILIUM_DATA_DIR:-~/trilium-data}:/home/node/trilium-data
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro

Start the container in detached mode:

# docker compose up -d

Sync

When the Trilium Notes server starts, you’ll have three options to initialize the instance:

New user, new Trilium document
Sync desktop to server
Sync server to server

To sync the desktop client to the server, go to Settings > Options > Sync, use http://IP_or_Hostname:Port of the Trilium server as the server instance address:

Click “Test sync” to verify the connection.

Server Management

Basics

View the running containers:

# docker ps

Start/Stop/Restart the container services:

# docker compose start
# docker compose stop
# docker compose restart

View the locally available docker images:

# docker images

View the container logs:

# docker compose logs

Reset the container back to its original state by bringing the container down with “-v” to wipe the volume, and then delete the data directory:

# docker compose down -v
# rm rf ~/trilium-data/

Note: Disable any sync clients before running the wipe commands, or the data may be unintentionally restored.

Updates

To update the Trilium container:

# docker compose pull

Bring the container down and then back up:

# docker compose down
# docker compose up -d

Backups

Trilium includes a built-in backup solution for daily, weekly, and monthly backups.

You can find these settings under Settings > Options > Backups.

Data is stored in the “trilium-data” directory within the root user’s home directory, as defined in the Docker Compose file. This directory contains a “backup” folder holding local backups:

# find ~ -name "trilium-data" 2>/dev/null
/root/trilium-data
# ls -la /root/trilium-data/backup/
total 7460
drwx------ 2 bit_rot bit_rot    4096 Jan 12 09:39 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 bit_rot bit_rot    4096 Jan 13 08:50 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 bit_rot bit_rot 2543616 Jan 12 09:39 backup-daily.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 bit_rot bit_rot 2543616 Jan  2 13:39 backup-monthly.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 bit_rot bit_rot 2543616 Jan  6 09:39 backup-weekly.db

Restores

The following steps will restore a Trilium instance.

Stop the Trilium container:
```
# docker compose down
```
Delete the following files:
- ~/trilium-data/document.db
- ~/trilium-data/document.db-wal
- ~/trilium-data/document.db-shm
```
# rm -f ~/trilium-data/document.db*
```
Copy and rename ~/trilium-data/backup/backup-*.db to ~/trilium-data/document.db:
```
# cp ~/trilium-data/backup/backup-daily.db ~/trilium-data/document.db
```
Make sure that the file is writable:
```
# chmod 600 document.db
```
Start the container:
```
# docker compose up -d
```

Enabling HTTPS

If you don’t already have a certificate and key, you can use the following command to generate a self-signed certificate and key in the ~/trilium-data directory:

# openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout ~/trilium-data/trilium.key -out ~/trilium-data/trilium.crt

Command breakdown:

-x509 – Self-signed
-nodes – Do not encrypt the key with a passphrase
-days – Valid for 3650 days (10 years)
-newkey – RSA with a key length of 4096
-keyout – Key file
-out – Certificate file

Edit the Trilium config.ini:

# nano ~/trilium-data/config.ini

Make the following modifications:

https=true
certPath=/home/node/trilium-data/trilium.crt
keyPath=/home/node/trilium-data/trilium.key

Update the port setting in /opt/trilium/docker-compose.yml to use HTTPS/443:

# nano docker-compose.yml

Update ports: to – ‘0.0.0.0:443:8080’.

Bring the container down and then back up:

# docker compose down
# docker compose up -d

Check the container logs:

# docker compose logs

Additional Notes

The Trilium desktop clients will not trust a self-signed certificate by default and will require a bypass:
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/setup/server/https

Conclusion

When I started this project, I wanted to avoid another self-hosted server for this use case, but I’m honestly surprised by how much I’ve come to like the web client. I normally prefer a desktop client for the speed and responsiveness, but the web client works really well, and it’s nice not to have to install an application on every device I use just to access my notes.

I actually used Trilium to capture all of the ideas and notes for this blog. I love it, it’s just so easy to use, and it’s incredible that it’s also free and open source.

I’m telling you, if you take a lot of notes, give this one a try.

Docker Linux OneNote Self hosting Trilium

Trilium Notes – Self-Hosted Server Setup

What Is Trilium Notes?

Features

Client & Server

Application

Additional Notes

Lab Setup

Server Setup

Docker Installation

Trilium Notes Server Installation

Sync

Server Management

Basics

Updates

Backups

Restores

Enabling HTTPS

Additional Notes

Conclusion

More posts

Trilium Notes – Self-Hosted Server Setup

Revisiting Purple Teaming AD with BloodHound CE & AD-Miner

Installing Omarchy On VMware Workstation

Home Lab (2025)