Bitnami Secure Image for CouchDB
CouchDB is an open source NoSQL database that stores your data with JSON documents, which you can access via HTTP. It allows you to index, combine, and transform your documents with JavaScript.
Overview of CouchDB Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
TL;DR
Use this quick command to run the container.
docker run --name couchdb bitnami/couchdb:latest
Why use Bitnami Secure Images?
Those are hardened, minimal CVE images built and maintained by Bitnami. Bitnami Secure Images are based on the cloud-optimized, security-hardened enterprise OS Photon Linux. Why choose BSI images?
- Hardened secure images of popular open source software with Near-Zero Vulnerabilities
- Vulnerability Triage & Prioritization with VEX Statements, KEV and EPSS Scores
- Compliance focus with FIPS, STIG, and air-gap options, including secure bill of materials (SBOM)
- Software supply chain provenance attestation through in-toto
- First class support for the internet’s favorite Helm charts
Each image comes with valuable security metadata. You can view the metadata in our public catalog here. Note: Some data is only available with commercial subscriptions to BSI.
If you are looking for our previous generation of images based on Debian Linux, please see the Bitnami Legacy registry.
Why use a non-root container?
Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.
Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links
Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.
Get this image
The recommended way to get the Bitnami CouchDB Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull bitnami/couchdb:latest
To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull bitnami/couchdb:[TAG]
If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.
git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .
Using docker-compose.yaml
Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes. For production-ready deployments, we highly recommend utilizing its associated Bitnami Helm chart.
Persisting your application
If you remove the container all your data will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.
For persistence you should mount a directory at the /bitnami path. If the mounted directory is empty, it will be initialized on the first run.
docker run \
-v /path/to/couchdb-persistence:/bitnami/couchdb \
bitnami/couchdb:latest
You can also do this with a minor change to the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:
couchdb:
...
volumes:
- /path/to/couchdb-persistence:/bitnami/couchdb
...
Note
As this is a non-root container, the mounted files and directories must have the proper permissions for the UID
1001.
Connecting to other containers
Using Docker container networking, a different server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers and vice-versa.
Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.
Configuration
The following sections describe environment variables and related settings.
Environment variables
The following tables list the main variables you can set.
Customizable environment variables
| Name | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
COUCHDB_NODENAME |
Name of the CouchDB node. | nil |
COUCHDB_PORT_NUMBER |
Port number used by CouchDB. | nil |
COUCHDB_CLUSTER_PORT_NUMBER |
Port number used by CouchDB for clustering. | nil |
COUCHDB_BIND_ADDRESS |
Address to which the CouchDB process will bind to. | nil |
COUCHDB_CREATE_DATABASES |
Whether to create CouchDB system databases during initialization. Useful for clustering. | yes |
COUCHDB_USER |
CouchDB admin username. | admin |
COUCHDB_PASSWORD |
Password for the CouchDB admin user. | couchdb |
COUCHDB_SECRET |
CouchDB secret/token used for proxy and cookie authentication. | bitnami |
Read-only environment variables
| Name | Description | Value |
|---|---|---|
COUCHDB_BASE_DIR |
CouchDB installation directory. | ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/couchdb |
COUCHDB_VOLUME_DIR |
CouchDB persistence directory. | /bitnami/couchdb |
COUCHDB_BIN_DIR |
CouchDB directory for binary executables. | ${COUCHDB_BASE_DIR}/bin |
COUCHDB_CONF_DIR |
CouchDB configuration directory. | ${COUCHDB_BASE_DIR}/etc |
COUCHDB_CONF_FILE |
CouchDB configuration file. | ${COUCHDB_CONF_DIR}/default.d/10-bitnami.ini |
COUCHDB_DATA_DIR |
CouchDB directory where data is stored. | ${COUCHDB_VOLUME_DIR}/data |
COUCHDB_DAEMON_USER |
CouchDB system user. | couchdb |
COUCHDB_DAEMON_GROUP |
CouchDB system group. | couchdb |
Mounting your own configuration files
If you want to provide more specific configuration options to CouchDB, you can always mount your own configuration files under /opt/bitnami/couchdb/etc/. You can either add new ones under ./local.d or override the existing ones.
To understand the precedence of the different configuration files, please check how CouchDB reads them.
FIPS configuration in Bitnami Secure Images
The Bitnami CouchDB Docker image from the Bitnami Secure Images catalog includes extra features and settings to configure the container with FIPS capabilities. You can configure the next environment variables:
OPENSSL_FIPS: whether OpenSSL runs in FIPS mode or not.yes(default),no.
Logging
The Bitnami CouchDB Docker image sends the container logs to stdout. To view the logs:
docker logs couchdb
You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.
Customize this image
The Bitnami CouchDB Docker image is designed to be extended so it can be used as the base image where you can add custom configuration files or other packages.
Extend this image
Before extending this image, please note there are certain configuration settings you can modify using the original image:
- Settings that can be adapted using environment variables. For instance, you can change the port used by CouchDB by setting the environment variable
COUCHDB_PORT_NUMBER. - Replacing or adding your own configuration files.
If your desired customizations cannot be covered using the methods mentioned above, extend the image. To do so, create your own image using a Dockerfile with the format below:
FROM bitnami/couchdb
### Put your customizations below
...
Notable changes
The following subsections describe notable changes.
3.0.0-0-debian-10-r0
- The usage of 'ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_LOGIN' is now deprecated. Please, specify a password for the admin user (defaults to "admin") by setting the 'COUCHDB_PASSWORD' environment variable.
License
Copyright © 2026 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.