Having Mailcow / Docker Auto Start Upon Server Boot Completion

theprez1980

Hey All -

I did a search and all I found was the link below but it didn’t seem to work. I’m trying to have Mailcow start on its own once the server has booted. Currently, I have to run docker-compose up -d manually each time to get mailcow ready for requests. I want to have it auto start on its own once the server has booted.

All I found was this via a search:

https://community.mailcow.email/d/2333-auto-start-mailcow-at-server-rebbot

I ran this command as referenced in the link above, but it didn’t auto start mailcow on boot:

sudo systemctl enable docker

Thanks

esackbauer

Mailcows containers are set to startup “always” as per docker compose file.
You need to have the docker service to start automatically, then mailcow starts automatically, too.

theprez1980

esackbauer thanks for the reply but how do I do that?

I thought running this command would do that with docker:

sudo systemctl enable docker

mlcwuser

theprez1980

What OS are you on? How did you install Docker? And what’s the output of systemctl status docker ?

theprez1980

mlcwuser I’m using Debian 12, I used this website to set it up:

https://gist.github.com/opentaq/2ce85108bee528700477c6db89610968

Here’s my output of systemctl status docker:

 docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; preset: enabl>
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2025-04-02 15:41:00 MDT; 14h ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
       Docs: https://docs.docker.com
   Main PID: 641 (dockerd)
      Tasks: 236
     Memory: 313.5M

DocFraggle

Are you shutting down Mailcow manually before rebooting? (docker compose down)
If you do, that’s the reason why Mailcow won’t start automatically after rebooting.

If you don’t shut it down and just reboot, I agree, it’s strange.

BTW; your linked installation howto is outdated, you shouldn’t use the docker-compose standalone version anymore. Any reason why you didn’t use the official Mailcow installation docs?

theprez1980

DocFraggle Thanks for the reply, no I’m not running docker compose down before a reboot but yeah, strange it doesn’t automatically restart on reboot.

I wasn’t aware it was outdated, being new to linux and mailcow I wanted to follow a video on youtube and thats where I got these steps. Sounds like I have more homework to do and perhaps need to restart my setup

DocFraggle

theprez1980 If you start over anyway, please use this:

https://docs.mailcow.email/getstarted/prerequisite-system/