Obsidian Sync ft. Coolify

September 23 2025•Steve Boby George
coolifyobsidianself-hosting

I’ve been using obsidian for a while now, and it’s one of the best knowledge base tools I’ve come across. It has an amazing plugin community and supports a wide variety of themes. The only drawback is that the sync feature is locked behind a paywall. If you’re able to purchase the license, please skip this tutorial and support the developers. This guide explains how to set up the Self-hosted LiveSync plugin for obsidian using coolify an approach that’s far more efficient and seamless than maintaining a GitHub repository for your obsidian vault.

obsidian-sync-meme

Image by u/mohammed0_o via r/ObsidianMDMemes

I’m writing this because I couldn’t find any clear or up-to-date documentation on setting up the plugin, and the official docs were a bit difficult to follow. The LiveSync plugin uses CouchDB for multi-device syncing, so we’ll host CouchDB on our server.

Docker Compose File

Here’s the docker-compose.yml snippet for CouchDB:

services:
  couchdb:
    image: budibase/couchdb
    environment:
      - SERVICE_FQDN_COUCHDB
      - COUCHDB_PASSWORD=$SERVICE_PASSWORD_COUCHDB
      - COUCHDB_USER=$SERVICE_USER_COUCHDB
      - TARGETBUILD=docker-compose
    healthcheck:
      test:
        - CMD
        - bash
        - '-c'
        - 'curl -f -u $${COUCHDB_USER}:$${COUCHDB_PASSWORD} http://localhost:5984/'
      interval: 15s
      timeout: 15s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 10s
    container_name: couchdb
    volumes:
      - 'couchdb-data:/opt/couchdb/data'
      - 'config:/opt/couchdb/etc/local.d'
    restart: unless-stopped

Be sure to set the environment variables in the service before starting it, and map port 5984 (the default CouchDB port).Here's fun fact, I couldn’t get any other CouchDB image to work reliably except this one (budibase/couchdb). So if you run into issues with alternatives, just stick with it.

Configure CouchDB

Once the service is up and running, configure CouchDB on your host machine with the following commands:

export hostname=https://billowing-dawn-6619.bytecron.dev (change me)
export username=campanella (change me)
export password=dfusiuada9suy (change me)
export node= couchdb@127.0.0.1
 
curl -X POST "${hostname}/_cluster_setup" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"action\":\"enable_single_node\",\"username\":\"${username}\",\"password\":\"${password}\",\"bind_address\":\"0.0.0.0\",\"port\":5984,\"singlenode\":true}"  --user "${username}:${password}"
 
 
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/chttpd/require_valid_user" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"true"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/chttpd_auth/require_valid_user" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"true"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/httpd/WWW-Authenticate" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"Basic realm=\"couchdb\""' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/httpd/enable_cors" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"true"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/chttpd/enable_cors" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"true"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/chttpd/max_http_request_size" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"4294967296"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/couchdb/max_document_size" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"50000000"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/cors/credentials" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"true"' --user "${username}:${password}"
curl -X PUT "${hostname}/_node/${node}/_config/cors/origins" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '"app://obsidian.md,capacitor://localhost,http://localhost"' --user "${username}:${password}"

Generate the Setup URI

Finally, to get the setup URI execute the following docker image (credits: Leduccc)

docker run \  
-e hostname=https://example.com \  
-e database=obsidiannotes \  
-e username=johndoe \  
-e password=abc123 \  
-e passphrase=dfsapkdjaskdjasdas \  
docker.io/oleduc/docker-obsidian-livesync-couchdb:master \  
deno -A /scripts/generate_setupuri.ts

The mapping for the environment variables is as follows:

  • SERVER_DOMAIN -> hostname
  • COUCHDB_USER -> username (you have setup in coolify)
  • COUCHDB_PASSWORD -> password (you have setup in coolify)
  • COUCHDB_DATABASE -> database (you can name the database as your wish)
  • passphrase -> This one is new and can be set to an arbitrary value. Make sure to save it, as you will need it each time you want to add a new device.

Final Steps

Go back to Obsidian, install the LiveSync plugin (if you haven’t already), enable it, and paste your encrypted setup URI along with the passphrase you set. Then follow the wizard to complete the configuration.

Helpful Links