Introduction

Docker can be downloaded for macOS, Windows, and Linux operating systems from https://www.docker.com/get-started. DockerHub hosts an official Neo4j image that provides a standard, ready-to-run package of Neo4j Community Edition and Enterprise Edition for a variety of versions.

Neo4j editions

Tags are available for both Community Edition and Enterprise Edition. Version-specific Enterprise Edition tags have an -enterprise suffix, for example: neo4j:4.4.34-enterprise. Community Edition tags have no suffix, for example neo4j:4.4.34. The latest Neo4j Enterprise Edition release is available as neo4j:enterprise.

All supported tags can be found at https://hub.docker.com/_/neo4j/tags.

Neo4j Enterprise Edition license: To use Neo4j Enterprise Edition, you must accept the license agreement by setting the environment variable NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=yes.

© Network Engine for Objects in Lund AB. 2022. All Rights Reserved. Use of this Software without a proper commercial license with Neo4j, Inc. or its affiliates is prohibited.

Email inquiries can be directed to: licensing@neo4j.com

More information is also available at: https://neo4j.com/licensing/

Using the Neo4j Docker image

You can start a Neo4j container by using the following command. Note that this Neo4j container will not persist data between restarts and will have the default username/password.

docker run \
    --restart always \
    --publish=7474:7474 --publish=7687:7687 \
    neo4j:4.4.34

You can try out your Neo4j container by opening http://localhost:7474/ (the Neo4j’s Browser interface) in a web browser. By default, Neo4j requires authentication and prompts you to log in with a username/password of neo4j/neo4j at the first connection. You are then prompted to set a new password.

The following sections provide more information about how to set an initial password, configure Neo4j to persist data between restarts, and use the Neo4j Docker image.

Using `NEO4J_AUTH` to set an initial password

When using Neo4j in a Docker container, you can set the initial password for the container directly by specifying the NEO4J_AUTH in your run directive:

docker run \
    --restart always \
    --publish=7474:7474 --publish=7687:7687 \
    --env NEO4J_AUTH=neo4j/your_password \
    neo4j:4.4.34

Alternatively, you can disable authentication by specifying NEO4J_AUTH to none:

--env NEO4J_AUTH=none

Please note that there is currently no way to change the initial username from neo4j.

Persisting data using Volumes

The --volume option maps a local folder to the container, where you can persist data between restarts.

docker run \
    --restart always \
    --publish=7474:7474 --publish=7687:7687 \
    --env NEO4J_AUTH=neo4j/your_password \
    --volume /path/to/your/data:/data \
    --volume= /path/to/your/logs:/logs \
    neo4j:4.4.34

The folders that you want to mount must exist before starting Docker, otherwise, Neo4j will fail to start due to permissions errors.

If you have mounted a /data volume containing an existing database, setting NEO4J_AUTH will have no effect. The Neo4j Docker service will start, but you will need a username and password already associated with the database to log in.

Running Neo4j as a non-root user

For security reasons, Neo4j runs as the neo4j user inside the container. You can specify which user to run as by invoking docker with the --user argument. For example, the following runs Neo4j as your current user:

docker run \
    --publish=7474:7474 --publish=7687:7687 \
    --user="$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
    neo4j:4.4.34

More useful Docker Run options

This table lists some of the options available:

Table 1. Options for `docker run`
Option	Description	Example
`--name`	Name your container to avoid generic ID	`docker run --name myneo4j neo4j`
`-p`	Specify which container port to expose	`docker run -p7687:7687 neo4j`
`-d`	Detach container to run in background	`docker run -d neo4j`
`-v`	Bind mount a volume	`docker run -v $HOME/neo4j/data:/data neo4j`
`--env`	Set config as environment variables for the Neo4j database	`docker run --env NEO4J_AUTH=neo4j/test`
`--restart`	Control whether Neo4j containers start automatically when they exit, or when Docker restarts.	`docker run --restart always`
`--help`	Output full list of `docker run` options	`docker run --help`

The --restart always option sets the Neo4j container (and Neo4j) to restart automatically whenever the Docker daemon is restarted.

If you no longer want to have the container auto-start on machine boot, you can disable this setting using the flag no:

docker update --restart=no <containerID>

For more information on Docker restart policies, see The official Docker documentation.

Offline installation of Neo4j Docker image

Docker provides the docker save command for downloading an image into a .tar package so that it can be used offline, or transferred to a machine without internet access.

This is an example command to save the neo4j:4.4.34 image to a .tar file:

docker save -o neo4j-4.4.34.tar neo4j:4.4.34

To load a docker image from a .tar file created by docker save, use the docker load command. For example:

docker load --input neo4j-4.4.34.tar

For complete instructions on using the docker save and docker load commands, refer to: