How to Use Obsidian in ANY Web Browser 2026 Guide — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Obsidian is easily one of the best note
2. 0:02taking apps available, but it comes with
3. 0:04a major catch. It's built as a desktop
4. 0:06and mobile application. That means if
5. 0:09you're on a lockdown work laptop, a
6. 0:11Chromebook, or a shared computer where
7. 0:13you can't install software, you're
8. 0:15usually completely locked out of your
9. 0:17second brain.
10. 0:19In today's video, we're fixing that
11. 0:21entirely. I'm going to show you how to
12. 0:23run a full-fledged Obsidian notebook
13. 0:25inside of a Docker container using the
14. 0:27official Linux server Obsidian image.
15. 0:30By the end of this guide, you'll be able
16. 0:32to open your web browser, go to your own
17. 0:34personal URL, and access your notebook
18. 0:36from anywhere in the world.
19. 0:39Let's get into it.
20. 0:42>> [music]
21. 0:52>> All right.
22. 0:53Now that we have our LXC container spun
23. 0:55up and we're running Ubuntu with Docker,
24. 0:58everything is ready to go. So, let's
25. 0:59build our compose file.
26. 1:02So, first things first,
27. 1:03I have a new directory that's already
28. 1:06installed called Obsidian. So, I'm just
29. 1:08going to change over to it.
30. 1:10And then, I'm going to create my Docker
31. 1:12compose file.
32. 1:20I'll leave the configuration in the
33. 1:21description for everybody to use.
34. 1:24When I paste this in here, let's break
35. 1:26down what's going on.
36. 1:27The first thing we're doing is we're
37. 1:29setting up our container called
38. 1:30Obsidian.
39. 1:32And right here, we're pulling our image.
40. 1:34And this is the official image for
41. 1:36Obsidian from the Linux server.
42. 1:39This image gives us a lightweight
43. 1:41desktop environment streamed straight to
44. 1:43the web.
45. 1:45The next thing we're doing is we're
46. 1:46setting a couple of environmental
47. 1:48variables.
48. 1:50We're using the user ID, the group ID,
49. 1:53our time zone,
50. 1:55and right here, I have a custom user and
51. 1:57a custom password to lock down the
52. 1:59notebook. So, if anybody out there tries
53. 2:01to access it, they'd have to
54. 2:02authenticate first.
55. 2:05The next part is the volumes that we're
56. 2:07going to be using.
57. 2:08You can see
58. 2:10I have our config volume and our vaults
59. 2:12volume. And these are just writing back
60. 2:15to folders that are going to be directly
61. 2:16on the LXC container.
62. 2:19And the last portion are the two ports
63. 2:20that we're going to be opening for the
64. 2:21container itself.
65. 2:23So, let's go ahead and save this
66. 2:25and we'll close out.
67. 2:28The next thing we're going to do is
68. 2:29start the container in detached mode.
69. 2:31And that just means that we're not going
70. 2:33to see all of the logs streaming on the
71. 2:34screen.
72. 2:36So, we're just going to type in docker
73. 2:38compose.
74. 2:39We're going to say we want the container
75. 2:40to come up.
76. 2:41And we're going to put a dash D. That's
77. 2:43that detached flag.
78. 2:46Now, I've already pulled this image.
79. 2:48So, everything is going to go a lot
80. 2:49faster than when you do it. But, expect
81. 2:51a couple minute wait while it downloads
82. 2:53the image and spins it up for you.
83. 2:57And as you can see,
84. 2:59our container has started
85. 3:01and we should be good to go.
86. 3:03Now, I did forget to mention there is
87. 3:05one quick gotcha.
88. 3:07Because we're using local folders on the
89. 3:08host and pushing them out to our
90. 3:10container, we need to allow the
91. 3:12container to write back to the host
92. 3:14itself.
93. 3:15So, there's two commands we're going to
94. 3:16run. The first is we're going to change
95. 3:18the owner of the vaults folder and the
96. 3:20config folder. And the second is we're
97. 3:22going to lock down who has the ability
98. 3:25to read, write, and execute into those.
99. 3:28And again, I'll paste these commands
100. 3:29into the description.
101. 3:32So, I'm just going to paste these two
102. 3:33commands
103. 3:36and make sure that they run fine.
104. 3:38And then we're going to move over to our
105. 3:40web browser and take a look.
106. 3:43Now, before I started this process, I
107. 3:45created my own DNS entry for
108. 3:47obsidian.textsimple.com.
109. 3:49And I pointed it to our LXC container IP
110. 3:51address and the port that we were using.
111. 3:54So, if we go to our browser
112. 3:56and we type in
113. 3:58obsidian.techsimple.com,
114. 4:02we're getting asked for the username and
115. 4:03password, which is a good sign.
116. 4:06So, we'll type in that username and
117. 4:07password that we set in our Docker
118. 4:09Compose file
119. 4:10and here we are.
120. 4:12We are in our Obsidian notebook on the
121. 4:15web, which is running out of that
122. 4:17container.
123. 4:19So, the first thing we're going to do is
124. 4:20create a new vault.
125. 4:22And right here I have the vault name of
126. 4:24techsimple.
127. 4:25And if I browse where I want to put it,
128. 4:27this is the part that's a little
129. 4:29difficult sometimes.
130. 4:30We're going to pick other locations.
131. 4:33We're going to pick the computer
132. 4:35and we're going to pick the vaults
133. 4:36folder.
134. 4:38Now, if you remember before we had to
135. 4:39run that command to change the owner of
136. 4:41the vaults folder
137. 4:42as well as set the execution policy on
138. 4:45it.
139. 4:46If you don't do that, when you try to
140. 4:47create this
141. 4:50notebook, it's going to give you an
142. 4:51error.
143. 4:52But since we did everything correctly, I
144. 4:54should be able to hit create here.
145. 4:57And here we go. We're in our vault.
146. 5:02And that's it. You can access this from
147. 5:03any computer,
148. 5:05from your mobile browser, from a
149. 5:07Chromebook, from your locked down
150. 5:08computer at work, and all you have to do
151. 5:11is go to the DNS site that you set up.
152. 5:14Now, there are some important things
153. 5:15that we're going to need to make sure
154. 5:17that we take care of.
155. 5:18The first being persistence of all the
156. 5:21folders and your notebook itself.
157. 5:24What I mean by that is, if we go back to
158. 5:26our host where Obsidian is running,
159. 5:29we look at the working directory, we're
160. 5:31in the Obsidian folder.
161. 5:34And if we just print out what's in this
162. 5:35folder, you'll see we have our config
163. 5:37folder and our vaults folder.
164. 5:39And we're going to want to make sure
165. 5:40that we back this up somehow. This is
166. 5:42where all of your information is going
167. 5:44to live. So, if something happens to
168. 5:46this container, the LXC container,
169. 5:49you're going to want to make sure you
170. 5:50have a backup of all the data that
171. 5:51you've been writing in here. Otherwise,
172. 5:53it's all gone.
173. 5:57I'll go over it in another video, but
174. 6:00all of my LXCs are automatically backed
175. 6:02up by Proxmox backup server.
176. 6:04So, I don't have to worry about it.
177. 6:09And just like that, you have a fully
178. 6:11functional, self-hosted Obsidian
179. 6:13instance accessible from any browser on
180. 6:15your network.
181. 6:16And if you pair this with a Cloudflare
182. 6:18Zero Trust Tunnel, like I did, you turn
183. 6:20it into an unstoppable setup you can
184. 6:22reach from anywhere in the world. Your
185. 6:24notes stay centralized on your home
186. 6:26server, your configuration is
187. 6:28persistent, and you never have to ask IT
188. 6:30for an app install on your work laptop
189. 6:32again.
190. 6:35If you enjoyed this video, or if you
191. 6:37learned something new,
192. 6:38please leave a comment, hit that thumbs
193. 6:41up button, or consider subscribing to
194. 6:43the channel. It really helps me get this
195. 6:45information in front of other people who
196. 6:47may be looking for it.
197. 6:49I'm Tech Simpled, and I'll see you in
198. 6:51the next one.