Anki Sync Server with Docker - and it works!

A quick and ergonomic way to setup a (reasonably) up-to-date instance of Anki Sync Server, without the hassle.

Based on tsudoko's ankisyncd

News

• 2020-02-06:

  AnkiDesktop 2.1.19, AnkiDroid 2.9.1 is tested and works with ankisyncd 2.1.0 with commit 2bfccf7f applied on the top of that.

• 2019-07-08:

  tsudoko/anki-sync-server#41

Tested and works on:

Date	AnkiDesktop version	AnkiDroid version	ankisyncd version	Tester
2020-02-06	2.1.19	2.9.1	2.1.0 + 2bfccf7f	kuklinistvan

Learn more about what "tested" means here.

Tested client downloads

	Main	Mirror	Size	SHA256
AnkiDesktop	2.1.19	2.1.19	127.7 MB	ada59237b8b3774712d6309821db4b6cb1d2c625284302aa09bc7313ada76fc0
AnkiDroid APK for Android	2.9.1	2.9.1	10.7 MB	511ef65b8dcb65a7f99f9942c4fcee5134f137ce23c677cf1ea3b26c7c3f34c5

Usage

One-time setup

If you've managed put your Anki devices on the same (typically LAN) network, you may use one of your computers to host the synchronization server with this command:

export ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR=~/anki-sync-server-docker-data

mkdir -p "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"
docker run -it \
   --mount type=bind,source="$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR",target=/app/data \
   -p 27701:27701 \
   --name anki-container \
   --rm \
   kuklinistvan/anki-sync-server:latest

You can interrupt this instance anytime by hitting Ctrl+C. You can restart the server with the same command. Its data is going to be preserved in $ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR.

Also, be warned that if you don't use any additional proxies, your connection will be unencrypted! That means if you use Anki to memorize your passwords they will be leaked :)

See below how you can point your desktop application to the server you've just created.

Deploying on a server

Docker will take care of starting the service on boot so you don't have to worry about that. You can setup the server with these commands:

export DOCKER_USER=root
export ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR=/etc/anki-sync-server
export HOST_PORT=27701

mkdir -p "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"
chown "$DOCKER_USER" "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"
chmod 700 "$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR"

docker run -itd \
   --mount type=bind,source="$ANKI_SYNC_DATA_DIR",target=/app/data \
   -p "$HOST_PORT":27701 \
   --name anki-container \
   --restart always \
   kuklinistvan/anki-sync-server:latest

or using docker-compose:

version: "3"

services:
    anki-sync-server:
        image: kuklinistvan/anki-sync-server:latest
        restart: always
        ports:
        - "27701:27701"
        volumes:
        - ./data:/app/data

HTTPS Encryption with Apache Proxy

Here is an example:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName anki.my.fancy.server.net

    <Location /sync>
        ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync
        ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync
    </Location>
    <Location /msync>
        ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync
        ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync
    </Location>

    UseCanonicalName off
    SSLEngine on
    SSLProtocol +TLSv1.2
    SSLCertificateFile /path/to/the/cert/fullchain.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/the/key/privkey.pem
    ProxyRequests off
    ProxyPreserveHost on
</VirtualHost>

Of course, nginx can work out too, but I haven't tried it yet.

Attention: of course, you should change the port if you've put anki-sync-server to a non-standard one.

Creating users

For this you need to access your container instance in order to use the server's ctl:

# docker exec -it anki-container /bin/sh
/app/anki-sync-server # ./ankisyncctl.py --help
usage: ./ankisyncctl.py <command> [<args>]

Commands:
  adduser <username> - add a new user
  deluser <username> - delete a user
  lsuser             - list users
  passwd <username>  - change password of a user
/app/anki-sync-server # ./ankisyncctl.py adduser kuklinistvan
Enter password for kuklinistvan:
/app/anki-sync-server #

Done!

Setting up your Anki client devices

What you need to publish	Specify in AnkiDesktop	Specify in AnkiDroid
http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync	http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync	http://127.0.0.1:27701/
http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync	http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync	http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync

Do not put trailing slashes!

AnkiDesktop

1. Launch Anki
2. Go to Tools > Add-ons
3. Click Get Add-ons...
4. Reference the SyncRedirector plugin with the code 2124817646
5. If you use docker-anki-sync-server on an external server or custom port:
   1. Select SyncRedirector and click Config
   2. Configure your sync urls
6. Restart Anki - optionally check your console output.

Plugin site: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2124817646

AnkiDroid

Open the app, then slide off the menu from the left side. Go Settings > Advanced > Custom sync server and specify the same two urls you've specified on the desktop client.

Does not work? Submit an issue!

I highly encourage you contacting me if you feel it is "broken again" - it frustrates me too and I'd like to take the effort to fix the bugs on my side.

Even if it is not a bug but rather something to be clarified, I'm happy to answer questions (if I can), so if you have one, just submit an issue.