How to deploy Whoogle search (Docker Container)

Here is a quick overview with the basic steps how to deploy Whoogle search on a Ubuntu server running Docker. Whoogle is a self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting "metasearch engine".

This Docker container will be deployed using docker compose.
The creation of a volume is not needed since there is no data to keep persistant.

Before you start make sure you have access to a device with a Docker engine running and an account with sufficient privileges.

Check out these sources for more information, requirements and instructions:
GitHub: https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search
Sourcehut: https://sr.ht/~benbusby/whoogle-search/ 

Start with an updated OS

Our target is a virtual machine with Ubuntu Server version 24.04.3 LTS installed.
It is always a good idea to start with an up to date operating system so the first step will be updating/upgrading this machine with the latest patches.

sudo apt-get update /
sudo apt-get upgrade

Create a folder for the docker compose file

sudo mkdir -p /data/dockerdata/whoogle

Create the docker compose file with nano

sudo nano /data/dockerdata/whoogle/docker-compose.yml

Paste the content below in the docker-compose.yaml file and save the docker compose file.

---
services:
    whoogle-search:
        image: 'benbusby/whoogle-search:latest'
        container_name: whoogle
        restart: unless-stopped
        ports:
            - '5000:5000'
        environment:
            - WHOOGLE_UPDATE_CHECK=0
            - WHOOGLE_CONFIG_THEME=dark
            - WHOOGLE_CONFIG_DISABLE=1
            - WHOOGLE_CONFIG_COUNTRY=NL
            - WHOOGLE_CONFIG_LANGUAGE=US
            - WHOOGLE_CONFIG_NEW_TAB=1
            - WHOOGLE_CONFIG_URL=http://10.5.0.134:5000/

Dowload the Whoogle image and start your Whoogle container using the docker-compose.yml file

cd /data/dockerdata/whoogle/
docker compose up -d

Example output:

techfossa@techfossa-demo-01:~$ cd /data/dockerdata/whoogle/
docker compose up -d
[+] Running 18/18
 ✔ whoogle-search Pulled                                                                                                                               4.2s
   ✔ 43c4264eed91 Already exists                                                                                                                       0.0s
   ✔ 4d1b2996acac Pull complete                                                                                                                        0.6s
   ✔ b3125c671f19 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.0s
   ✔ c72d76b06fd3 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.1s
   ✔ 8b4198831c43 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.2s
   ✔ 705a80f43819 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.4s
   ✔ b12777aabe03 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.4s
   ✔ e6230963fde1 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.5s
   ✔ 3b4d27994296 Pull complete                                                                                                                        1.5s
   ✔ cc5c9bfc1148 Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.0s
   ✔ 759e82004492 Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.0s
   ✔ 3c8e46f9cdcb Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.1s
   ✔ df26f0255298 Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.1s
   ✔ 7f5bd8f659c3 Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.1s
   ✔ 120cdefee85a Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.2s
   ✔ 3d38a9e6ae33 Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.4s
   ✔ 4f4fb700ef54 Pull complete                                                                                                                        2.4s
[+] Running 2/2
 ✔ Network whoogle_default  Created                                                                                                                    0.0s
 ✔ Container whoogle        Started                                                                                                                    0.2s
techfossa@techfossa-demo-01:/data/dockerdata/whoogle$

Your Whoogle search instance should be available by entering it's URL in your browser, in this case for our server http://10.5.0.134:5000/

Happy searching without adds and tracking!
There are some settings you can tweak, you can find more information at: https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search . You can by the developer a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/benbusby .

Have fun exploring and using Whoogle search!