If you're already running Debian, Ubuntu or similar, and haven't used docker before then it's probably easier just to install directly. For what it's worth, that is my preferred installation method since Docker takes an already complicated situation and makes it more complicated.
Get the image and run:
# Get the latest
docker pull sbs20/scanservjs:latest
# Remove old container
docker rm --force scanservjs-container 2> /dev/null
# Run
docker run \
--detach \
--publish 8080:8080 \
--volume /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus \
--restart unless-stopped \
--name scanservjs-container \
--privileged \
sbs20/scanservjs:latest
✅ The docker image supports arm as well as amd64.
Docker is great for certain tasks. But it's less ideal for situations where the
container needs to access the host hardware. The simple solution is to run with
--privileged
but that gives your container full root access to the host which
means you're putting a lot of trust in the container and it's often still not
sufficient for a working system. It's better not to do this, but it can be
painful to avoid. The cleanest solution is to use
SANE over Network.
The best overall implementation with Docker if you can manage it is to
share the scanner over the network on the
host (where the scanner is connected) and then update net.conf
in the
container; either using a volume map or setting the SANED_NET_HOSTS
environment variable on the docker container.
This user uses docker compose instead. See examples below.
Sometimes you will need to configure SANE within the container. The best way to achieve this is just volume mapping.
Example to configure airscan.conf
:
# Create your airscan config
cat > ./airscan.host.conf << EOF
[devices]
HP = http://192.168.1.150/eSCL, eSCL
[options]
discovery = disable
EOF
# Now map it
docker run -d \
--publish 8080:8080 \
--volume ./airscan.host.conf:/etc/sane.d/airscan.conf \
--restart unless-stopped \
--name scanservjs-container \
--privileged \
sbs20/scanservjs:latest
Example to configure pixma.conf
:
# Create your pixma config
echo "bjnp://192.168.1.5" > ./pixma.host.conf
# Now map it
docker run -d \
--publish 8080:8080 \
--volume ./pixma.host.conf:/etc/sane.d/pixma.conf \
--restart unless-stopped \
--name scanservjs-container \
--privileged \
sbs20/scanservjs:latest
There are some shortcuts available to volume mapping above by using environment variables:
SANED_NET_HOSTS
: If you want to use a SaneOverNetwork scanner then to perform the equivalent of adding hosts to/etc/sane.d/net.conf
specify a list of ip addresses separated by semicolons in theSANED_NET_HOSTS
environment variable.AIRSCAN_DEVICES
: If you want to specifically addsane-airscan
devices to your/etc/sane.d/airscan.conf
then use theAIRSCAN_DEVICES
environment variable (semicolon delimited).PIXMA_HOSTS
: If you want to use a PIXMA scanner which uses the bjnp protocol then to perform the equivalent of adding hosts to/etc/sane.d/pixma.conf
specify a list of ip addresses separated by semicolons in thePIXMA_HOSTS
environment variable.DELIMITER
: if you need to include semi-colons (;
) in your environment variables, this allows you to choose an alternative delimiter.DEVICES
: Force add devices useDEVICES
(semicolon delimited)SCANIMAGE_LIST_IGNORE
: To force ignorescanimage -L
To access data from outside the docker container, there are two volumes you may wish to map:
- The scanned images: use
--volume /local/path/scans:/var/lib/scanservjs/output
- Configuration overrides: use
--volume /local/path/cfg:/etc/scanservjs
If your scanner is connected by USB to the host, and there are standard SANE drivers, then you can map the device. The best way to do this is to map the actual USB ports.
In case you scanner is always plugged to your device:
- Run
sudo sane-find-scanner -q
and you will get a result likefound USB scanner (vendor=0x04a9 [Canon], product=0x220d [CanoScan], chip=LM9832/3) at libusb:001:003
- Or run
lsusb
which gives youBus 001 Device 003: ID 04a9:220d Canon, Inc. CanoScan N670U/N676U/LiDE 20
- Both translate to
/dev/bus/usb/001/003
. - The docker argument would be
--device=/dev/bus/usb/001/003:/dev/bus/usb/001/003
- You may also need to adjust permissions on the USB port of the host e.g.
See this helpful answer for more.
chmod a+rw dev/bus/usb/001/003
In case your scanner is not always plugged in, the device path will change every so often, and the previous solution will stop working. Also, some devices will go to sleep after long idle times, effectively getting "unplugged" and "plugged again" over and over.
This can also happen if your container is running inside a VM resultig in an unstable device id.
In this case, you may use udev
so that it starts or re-configures your
container whenever your scanner is hot-plugged. This is suggested in
the official Docker documentation:
-
Run
lsusb
to retrieve your device "vendor ID" and "product ID". Reusing the example above:Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04a9:220d Canon, Inc. CanoScan N670U/N676U/LiDE 20
means that the vendor ID is
04a9
, and the product ID is220d
. -
Add a udev rule
/etc/udev/rules.d/50-add-scanner.rules
ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="04a9", ATTR{idProduct}=="1774", RUN+="/etc/scan/bind-scanner-to-container.sh $name $major $minor $attr{idVendor} $attr{idProduct}"
-
Make
udev
aware of this change:sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
-
This will run the following script every time the scanner is plugged.
/etc/scan/bind-scanner-to-container.sh
#!/bin/bash # This script must be executable by root DEVICE_PATH="$1" MAJOR_NUMBER="$2" MINOR_NUMBER="$3" # USB identifiers of the device VENDOR_ID="$4" PRODUCT_ID="$5" CONTAINER_NAME="scan" IMAGE_NAME="sbs20/scanservjs:release-v2.25.0" logger "Scanner ($VENDOR_ID:$PRODUCT_ID) is available at $DEVICE_PATH. Let's make it available to the scan server container" # Is the container running already? container_id=$(docker ps -q -f name=$CONTAINER_NAME) if [ -z "$container_id" ]; then # Container was not running. We should start it, with the right device ID device_nb=$(lsusb | grep "$VENDOR_ID:$PRODUCT_ID" | grep -o -E "Device [0-9]+" | grep -o -E "[0-9]+") if [ -z "$device_nb" ]; then logger "Unable to find where this device is connected. Ignoring." exit 1 fi # Waiting for Docker to be available (if the scanner is plugged when the host boots, udev will trigger this script before Docker is even started) attempts=0 while true ; do if [ "$(systemctl is-active docker)" == "active" ]; then break fi sleep 10 attempts=$(( attempts + 1 )) if [ "$attempts" -gt 10 ]; then logger "Docker is not running. Will not start scan server." exit 1 fi done logger "Starting the scan server from $IMAGE_NAME, with device $device_nb ($VENDOR_ID:$PRODUCT_ID, major number is $MAJOR_NUMBER)..." # --device adds the existing device to the container. # --device-cgroup-rule makes it possible to add future hot-plugged devices # see https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/run/#device-cgroup-rule docker run --detach \ --rm \ --publish 8080:8080 \ --volume /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus \ --volume /path/to/the/optional/scan/folder:/var/lib/scanservjs/output \ --volume /path/to/the/optional/custom/config:/etc/scanservjs \ --name "$CONTAINER_NAME" \ --device=/dev/bus/usb/001/"$device_nb":/dev/bus/usb/001/"$device_nb" \ --device-cgroup-rule="c $MAJOR_NUMBER:* rmw" \ "$IMAGE_NAME" 2>&1 | logger else # Container is running. We just have to add the device there logger "Adding the new scanner to the scan server container..." docker exec "$CONTAINER_NAME" mknod "/dev/$DEVICE_PATH" c "$MAJOR_NUMBER" "$MINOR_NUMBER" 2>&1 | logger fi
-
If you prefer, you may tweak both files above e.g. to stop the container when the scanner is disconnected, and re-start the container when the device is re-connected.
If your scanner is driverless over the network, then
sane-airscan should be able to
figure it out - but it uses Avahi / Zeroconf / Bonjour to discover devices on
the local network. You will want to share dbus to make it work
(--volume /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus
).
Note that driverless-mode scanning (using airscan over IPP-USB) often results in problems. If anyone has ideas why (perhaps something additional needs sharing from host to guest) then suggestions are welcome. The documentation may be useful.
If you need proprietary drivers for your scanner then the best solution is either to install the drivers on the host and share it over the network or to create your own docker image based on the scanservjs one and add it in that way.
Here is an example on how one particular Brother scanner model and its driver
can be installed in the Dockerfile. The driver (brscan4-0.4.10-1.amd64.deb
)
needs to be placed next to the Dockerfile, then:
COPY brscan4-0.4.10-1.amd64.deb "$APP_DIR/brscan4-0.4.10-1.amd64.deb"
RUN apt install -yq "$APP_DIR/brscan4-0.4.10-1.amd64.deb" \
&& brsaneconfig4 -a name=ADS-2600W model=ADS-2600W nodename=10.0.100.30
Note: The addition of more backends to the docker container is not planned since it would mostly add cruft for most users who don't need it.
When mapping volumes, special attention must be paid to users and file systems permissions.
The docker container runs as root by default. Changing the user's UID (e.g. by
using --user 1000
for docker run
) to access scans/configuration from outside
docker is not advised since it will cause scans to fail.. If running as a
different user is important to you then see the scanservjs-user2001
target in
../Dockerfile.
Your alternatives are:
- changing the group of the container to a known group on the host e.g.
--user 0:1000
. This will keep the user correct (0
) but change the group (1000
). - building a docker image with a custom UID/GID pairing: clone this repository
and run
(with UID and GID adjusted to your liking), then run the custom image (e.g.
docker build --build-arg UID=1234 --build-arg GID=5678 --tag scanservjs_custom .
docker run scanservjs_custom
). - as a last resort, changing the host volume permissions e.g.
chmod 777 local-volume
docker run --detach --publish 8080:8080 \
--env SANED_NET_HOSTS="10.0.100.30" \
--name scanservjs-container sbs20/scanservjs:latest
docker run --detach --publish 8080:8080 \
--volume $HOME/scan-data:/var/lib/scanservjs/output \
--volume $HOME/scan-cfg:/etc/scanservjs \
--device /dev/bus/usb/001/003:/dev/bus/usb/001/003 \
--name scanservjs-container sbs20/scanservjs:latest
This should support most use cases
docker run --detach --publish 8080:8080 \
--volume /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus \
--name scanservjs-container sbs20/scanservjs:latest
Add two net hosts to sane, use airscan to connect to two remote scanners, add
two pixma scanners using the bjnp protocol, don't use scanimage -L
, force a
list of devices, override the OCR language and run in privileged mode
docker run --detach --publish 8080:8080 \
--env SANED_NET_HOSTS="10.0.100.30;10.0.100.31" \
--env AIRSCAN_DEVICES='"Canon MFD" = "http://192.168.0.10/eSCL";"EPSON MFD" = "http://192.168.0.11/eSCL"' \
--env PIXMA_HOSTS="10.0.100.32;10.0.100.33" \
--env SCANIMAGE_LIST_IGNORE=true \
--env DEVICES="net:10.0.100.30:plustek:libusb:001:003;net:10.0.100.31:plustek:libusb:001:003;airscan:e0:Canon TR8500 series;airscan:e1:EPSON Cool Series" \
--env OCR_LANG="fra" \
--volume /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus \
--name scanservjs-container --privileged sbs20/scanservjs:latest
It can be convenient to host scanservjs on the same machine where you store your scans — your NAS. Here's a possible approach for network scanning with a Synology NAS:
- Install the Synology Docker package.
- In DSM, create a service user "scanservjs" which will run the Docker
container. Make sure to give it write permission to the preferred target
location for scans. We'll use
/volume1/scans
. - SSH with an admin account onto the NAS and use
id
to determine the UID and GID of the service user just created:Keep the session open, we'll need it again in a moment.admin@synology:~$ id scanservjs uid=1034(scanservjs) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),65538(scanusers)
- On your workstation, download and extract the latest scanservjs release.
- In the repository root, create a text file named
docker-compose.yml
with the following content:version: "3" services: scanservjs: build: context: . args: # ----- enter UID and GID here ----- UID: 1034 GID: 100 target: scanservjs-user2001 container_name: scanservjs environment: # ----- specify network scanners here; see above for more possibilities ----- - SANED_NET_HOSTS="10.0.100.30" volumes: # ---- enter your target location for scans before the ':' character ----- - /volume1/scans:/var/lib/scanservjs/output - ./config:/etc/scanservjs ports: - 8080:8080 restart: unless-stopped
- Copy the entire repository including
docker-compose.yml
onto your NAS (via smb, sftp, ...). - In your SSH session from earlier,
cd
to the repository location and runsudo docker-compose up -d
- After a medium-sized cup of tea, scanservjs should be available at
http://<NAS IP Address>:8080
- Bonus: Create a reverse proxy rule in the
Application Portal
so that scanservjs can be reached via
http://scan.synology.lan
(or similar). Scanning can be slow, so set the proxy timeouts to 300 seconds or more to prevent timeout issues.
These may be less stable, but also have upcoming features.
If you want to install the latest staging branch (this may contain newer code)
docker pull sbs20/scanservjs:staging
docker rm --force scanservjs-container 2> /dev/null
docker run \
--detach \
--publish 8080:8080 \
--volume /var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus \
--restart unless-stopped \
--name scanservjs-container \
--privileged sbs20/scanservjs:staging