🍃 Overleaf Community Installer (Self-Hosted)

An automated, secure, and GUI-based installer to deploy your own Overleaf Community Edition server effortlessly.

This script handles Docker configuration, cryptographic secret generation, and remote connectivity (via Tailscale), allowing you to have your own real-time collaborative LaTeX editor without user limits and fully under your control.

✨ Features

• 🚀 Multi-platform: Works on Arch Linux, Debian/Ubuntu, Windows, and macOS.
• 🖥️ GUI Control Panel: User-friendly interface to install, start, and stop the server without complex CLI commands.
• 🔄 Up-to-date (v5.0): Automatically configures Overleaf 5.0 with Mongo 8.0, solving compatibility issues from older manual setups.
• 🔒 Security First: Automated secure secret generation, 0600 permissions, and strict input validation.
• 🌐 Remote Support (Tailscale): Native integration to install/detect Tailscale on Linux for secure remote collaboration.
• ⚡ Resource Control: Includes buttons to Stop and Start the server easily to save RAM (~2GB) when not in use.

📋 Prerequisites

Before running the script, ensure you have:

1. Git and Docker (Docker Desktop on Windows/Mac, Docker Engine on Linux).
2. Python 3.
3. (Linux Only) Tkinter:

• Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S tk
• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install python3-tk

🚀 Quick Start

Download the script "install_overleaf.py" 1.

Run the installer:

python install_overleaf.py

Select your Language (English/Spanish) and follow the GUI instructions:

• Select [1] Local if you only use it on your Wi-Fi/PC.
• Select [2] Remote if you want to collaborate with friends via Internet (using Tailscale).

🛠️ What does this script do?

It automates the "DevOps" work for you:

1. Cloning: Downloads the official overleaf/toolkit.
2. Configuration: Generates overleaf.env and docker-compose.yml with the correct configuration for v5.0 (fixed paths and ports).
3. Database: Initializes the required MongoDB 8.0 Replica Set.
4. Auto-Start: Configures containers to start automatically with your PC (unless manually stopped via the GUI).

⚠️ Important Notes

• First Run: The installation will download about 4GB of data (Full TeX Live). Please be patient.
• Initial Boot: Once installed, Overleaf takes 2-3 minutes to start all services. If you see a "Connection Error", wait a bit and refresh the page.
• Port: Default is 8080. If busy, the installer will alert you and let you change it.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you find a bug or want to improve distro detection, feel free to open a Pull Request.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. Overleaf is a registered trademark of Digital Science UK Limited. This installer is an unofficial community project.