Late 2024 alternate install walkthrough

[farski]

In case this is helpful for anyone, I just rebuilt my birdnet box. I had been running birdnet-go for a while, but using the binaries, and on a Pi that had previously been running BirdNET-Pi. I started over, using Docker from the beginning. This is on a Pi 4B. I did things a bit differently than the standard install docs.

These instructions assume some basic Linux and Docker knowledge. I know not everyone installing birdnet-go does computers for a living, so if anything needs to be expanded, please ask – I'm happy to explain.

1. Installed Raspberry Pi OS Lite on an SD card using the RP imager

2. Installed Docker Engine by following their guide. (Note: a lot of links on Docker's website will take you to the install guide for Docker Desktop, even when you're on pages for Docker Engine. If you want only Docker Engine, make sure you know what page you're looking at).

3. Followed the steps to manage Docker as a non-root user

4. I made two directories for birdnet-go assets: ~/birdnet-go/data and ~/birdnet-go/config

5. Follow the steps in Deciding ALSA_CARD value

6. Created a ~/birdnet-go/compose.yml file

   services:
     birdnet-go:
       restart: unless-stopped
       image: ghcr.io/tphakala/birdnet-go:dev
       ports:
         - 80:8080
       environment:
         - ALSA_CARD=1
         - TZ=America/New_York
       devices:
         - /dev/snd:/dev/snd
       volumes:
         - $HOME/birdnet-go/config:/config
         - $HOME/birdnet-go/data:/data

   Note that this is running the dev release of birdnet-go, which may be more experimental or unstable than you want.

7. Run docker compose up -d. Because of the restart directive in compose.yml, Docker Compose should keep birdnet-go running, even in the event of a crash or something like that.

8. I also wanted to backup my birdnet database everyday, so I added this to my crontab:

   15 0 * * * cp /home/birdnet/birdnet-go/data/birdnet.db /home/birdnet/birdnet-go/data/birdnet.bak.db && AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=tktktk AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="tktktk" AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=tktk aws s3 cp /home/birdnet/birdnet-go/data/birdnet.bak.db s3://my-backup-bucket/daily/birdnet.bak.db.

   You'd need the AWS CLI (I used sudo apt install awscli even though that's not what AWS recommends). You'll need to sort out creating a bucket in AWS and setting up the key/secret if you wanted to do this. Or you could do something similar with many other file hosting services, rsync, sftp, etc. The only tricky bit in here is that aws s3 does an MD5 check to ensure the upload is valid, and the database file may change during the upload. So first this copies the DB to a backup file and pushes that to S3.

9. (Update: 2024-12-20) I've also added another crontab entry, to automatically update the dev docker image and restart the container every night:
   15 1 * * * cd /home/birdnet/birdnet-go && docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

[ericleslie]

Thank you, this was very helpful!

[normal-dot-brad]

This is great and I'm close but I'm sorry I have a newbie question...
I've made the port: [mylocalip]:80:8080 but it's giving an error saying port 80 is already in use. Does it matter if I give it another number ?

[farski]

No, not really. Web browsers use port 80 by default, so if your birdnet box is running at 192.168.1.56, you would be able to access the UI by visiting just http://192.168.1.56. For any other port, the application will work just the same, but you'll have to include the port when you visit the site in your browser, like http://192.168.1.56:81 or http://192.168.1.56:8080.

I only use this Raspberry Pi for birdnet, so using port 80 makes it ever-so-slightly easier to get to.

[normal-dot-brad]

Ah ok, thank you that makes sense

[SenorFusion]

@farski Thanks for this!

Are you possibly still running this along side birdnet-pi on the same machine?

If so, have you had any problems with that? or did you have to make any adjustments?

[farski]

No, this was a fresh OS and has only ever had birdnet-go installed. There was a very short period when birdnet-go first came out that I had both running at the same time, but I pretty quickly moved to just birdnet-go, and I don't recall if there was anything funny about running both (or if it even worked reliably).

[tphakala]

The most common problem will be getting sound device sharing to work. It should work as long as the dsnoop device is used as the audio capture device, since it is a "virtual" capture device that can be shared between multiple applications.

[SenorFusion]

I just wanted to thank you for this guide - I used your docker compose file and it worked great.

The docker log was complaining about Error Cleaning Up clips: no such file or directory

I added $HOME/birdnet-go/clips:/clips and it stopped complaining but its not collecting clips there, not sure what the issue is.

[farski]

Hmm, that shouldn't be necessary unless you've changed something in your config, I think. Even if your clips directory is set to /clips, that would be relative to the /data volume. @tphakala may have a better idea why that's happening.

[philou155]

hello! trying to install birdnet go on a raspberry pi 4b and following your instruction. how do you do step 4 and 6 though?

4 Make two directories for birdnet-go assets: ~/birdnet-go/data and ~/birdnet-go/config
6 Create a ~/birdnet-go/compose.yml file

would you be using ssh to do that as well? if so, how?

I've successfully installed birdnet go but couldn't make it work without the pi being connected to wifi and the ssh command to execute docker... am i right thinking using the "compose" file will allow the pi to work independently and offline?

[tphakala]

Unless you know exactly what you are doing and have specific need to use compose method explained here, I would ask you to use install.sh method instead.

curl -fsSL https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go/raw/main/install.sh -o install.sh
bash ./install.sh

[philou155]

right, sorry, not sure what i am doing! ...but as i said I could install birdnet go but couldn't make it work independently on the pi.

Every time I plug in the pi, I need to execute the command to launch birdnet go via ssh. I can use raspontroler on my phone but when i stop the connection, it stops working. Is there a way to have the pi work offline and without having to launch it every time? I would just check the results by connecting to it via a browser