Installation

Step by step installation for Debian / Ubuntu with virtualenv.

Source: https://about.okhin.fr/posts/Searx/ with some additions

How to: Setup searx in a couple of hours with a free SSL certificate

Basic installation

For Ubuntu, be sure to have enable universe repository.

Install packages :

sudo apt-get install git build-essential libxslt-dev python-dev python-virtualenv python-pybabel zlib1g-dev libffi-dev libssl-dev

Install searx :

cd /usr/local
sudo git clone https://github.com/asciimoo/searx.git
sudo useradd searx -d /usr/local/searx
sudo chown searx:searx -R /usr/local/searx

Install dependencies in a virtualenv :

sudo -u searx -i
cd /usr/local/searx
virtualenv searx-ve
. ./searx-ve/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python setup.py install

Configuration

sed -i -e "s/ultrasecretkey/`openssl rand -hex 16`/g" searx/settings.yml

Edit searx/settings.yml if necessary.

Check

Start searx :

python searx/webapp.py

Go to http://localhost:8888

If everything works fine, disable the debug option in settings.yml :

sed -i -e "s/debug : True/debug : False/g" searx/settings.yml

At this point searx is not demonized ; uwsgi allows this.

You can exit the virtualenv and the searx user bash (enter exit command twice).

uwsgi

Install packages :

sudo apt-get install uwsgi uwsgi-plugin-python

Create the configuration file /etc/uwsgi/apps-available/searx.ini with this content :

[uwsgi]
# Who will run the code
uid = searx
gid = searx

# disable logging for privacy
disable-logging = true

# Number of workers (usually CPU count)
workers = 4

# The right granted on the created socket
chmod-socket = 666

# Plugin to use and interpretor config
single-interpreter = true
master = true
plugin = python

# Module to import
module = searx.webapp

# Virtualenv and python path
virtualenv = /usr/local/searx/searx-ve/
pythonpath = /usr/local/searx/
chdir = /usr/local/searx/searx/

Activate the uwsgi application and restart :

cd /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled
ln -s ../apps-available/searx.ini
/etc/init.d/uwsgi restart

Web server

with nginx

If nginx is not installed (uwsgi will not work with the package nginx-light) :

sudo apt-get install nginx

Hosted at /

Create the configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-available/searx with this content :

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name searx.example.com;
    root /usr/local/searx;

    location / {
            include uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/app/searx/socket;
    }
}

Restart service :

sudo service nginx restart
sudo service uwsgi restart

from subdirectory URL (/searx)

Add this configuration in the server config file /etc/nginx/sites-available/default :

location = /searx { rewrite ^ /searx/; }
location /searx {
        try_files $uri @searx;
}
location @searx {
        uwsgi_param SCRIPT_NAME /searx;
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_modifier1 30;
        uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/app/searx/socket;
}

Enable base_url in searx/settings.yml

base_url : http://your.domain.tld/searx/

Restart service :

sudo service nginx restart
sudo service uwsgi restart

disable logs

for better privacy you can disable nginx logs about searx.

how to proceed : below uwsgi_pass in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default add

access_log /dev/null;
error_log /dev/null;

Restart service :

sudo service nginx restart

with apache

Add wsgi mod :

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-uwsgi
sudo a2enmod uwsgi

Add this configuration in the file /etc/apache2/apache2.conf :

<Location />
    Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
    SetHandler uwsgi-handler
    uWSGISocket /run/uwsgi/app/searx/socket
</Location>

Note that if your instance of searx is not at the root, you should change <Location /> by the location of your instance, like <Location /searx>.

Restart Apache :

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

disable logs

For better privacy you can disable Apache logs.

WARNING : not tested

WARNING : you can only disable logs for the whole (virtual) server not for a specific path.

Go back to /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and above <Location /> add :

CustomLog /dev/null combined

Restart Apache :

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

How to update

cd /usr/local/searx
sudo -u searx -i
. ./searx-ve/bin/activate
git stash
git pull origin master
git stash apply
pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt
sudo service uwsgi restart