LibreNMS on Docker

LibreNMS is an open-source, auto-discovering network monitoring platform — SNMP polling, alerting, performance graphing, and OS detection across switches, routers, servers, and more, all from a single web UI. This guide deploys the official multi-container stack with Docker Compose: MariaDB for persistence, Redis for caching and the dispatcher queue, an msmtpd mailer, plus optional sidecars for the poller dispatcher, SNMP trap handling, and syslog ingestion.

The LibreNMS project maintains a ready-to-use Compose example. Download the archive, extract it, and work from the examples/compose directory. All paths in later steps are relative to that folder.

Two files drive the deployment. Edit .env for the timezone and database credentials, and librenms.env for application-level settings such as the SNMP community and worker counts. The database password is referenced by the db and librenms services through these variables, so set it once here.

The official compose.yml defines the core services plus three optional sidecars. The db and redis services back the application; msmtpd relays mail. The dispatcher, snmptrapd, and syslogng containers reuse the same image with a sidecar flag. The structure below is abbreviated from the upstream example.

From inside examples/compose, bring everything up. On first start the LibreNMS container creates the database schema and runs migrations automatically — this can take a minute or two.

Unlike many appliances, LibreNMS has no default password. The first time you open the web UI it walks you through creating the administrator account. Browse to your server on port 8000 and append the install path:

Provide a username, a strong password, and an email address, then finish the wizard. You are redirected to the login page, and from there to the validation screen that confirms the database, schema, and services are healthy.

LibreNMS polls devices over SNMP. On each device you want to monitor, install and configure an SNMP agent. On a Linux target, the project ships a ready-made config — install snmpd, drop in the example file, and set your community string to match LIBRENMS_SNMP_COMMUNITY.

Open the file and replace RANDOMSTRINGGOESHERE with your community string (the Docker default is librenmsdocker), then update the syslocation and syscontact lines. Restart the agent:

With SNMP answering, add the device in the UI under Devices → Add Device. Enter the hostname or IP, choose the SNMP version, and supply the community string. LibreNMS auto-detects the OS and begins discovery and polling. You can also do it from the CLI:

Graphs populate after a few polling cycles (every five minutes by default). The dispatcher sidecar handles scheduling, so no host cron job is required.