GroupOffice Docker image

GroupOffice is an open source groupware system. More information can be found at https://www.group-office.com.

I recommend using this with docker compose.

Using docker compose

Clone this repository and run from inside the directory:

docker compose up -d

Then launch your browser to http://localhost:9090 and the GroupOffice installer should appear.

Cron job

You should also configure a cron job on the host machine so that Group Office can run scheduled tasks.

On Linux create a file /etc/cron.d/groupoffice and add (replace /path/to/docker-groupoffice):

* * * * * root cd /path/to/docker-groupoffice && docker compose exec -u www-data -T groupoffice php /usr/local/share/groupoffice/cron.php

On MacOS I ran on the terminal:

crontab -e

And added:

* * * * * cd /path/to/docker-groupoffice && docker compose exec -u www-data -T groupoffice php /usr/local/share/groupoffice/cron.php

Upgrading

Check the image tag in your compose.yml for the current version. For example "intermesh/groupoffice:25.0". Make sure it's not on "latest". The reason is that you need to upgrade major releases step by step. A major release is when the first or second digit of the version increases. For example you can upgrade 25.0 to 25.1 but not 25.0 to 25.2.

If you're doing a major release upgrade and you run the professional license then make sure to install the latest license key from your group-office.com account in the contracts section (https://www.group-office.com/account#account/contracts) if you run the professional version. This can be done via the browser GUI in the main menu -> register or via CLI:

docker compose exec -u www-data groupoffice php /usr/local/share/groupoffice/cli.php core/System/setLicense --key=<YOURKEY>

Navigate in the folder of this repo and checkout another branch: Check branches:

git branch -a

Select a version and checkout this branch:

git checkout VERSION

Pull the image:

docker compose pull

Run the containers with the new image:

docker compose up -d

Then run the database upgrade:

docker compose exec -u www-data groupoffice /usr/local/share/groupoffice/cli.php core/System/upgrade

Or you can run that via the web UI:

http://localhost:9090/install/upgrade.php

Collabora Online integration

To enable Collabora Online integration you need to start the collabora container too with:

docker compose -f compose.yaml -f compose.collabora.yaml up -d

See https://www.group-office.com/blog/2026/01/collabora-online-integration for a complete guide.

Group-Office mailserver

Spin off the GroupOffice mailserver container too:

docker compose -f compose.yml -f compose.mailserver.yml up -d

The mailserver needs the maildomains module to be installed. So login to the web interface and install it.

Your mailserver is running IMAP (143, 993), SMTP (587, 25), Managesieve (4190). Internally the mailserver is reachable at hostname mailserver.

SSL Certificates

SSL is enabled by default but it uses a self-signed certificate. You can use a real certificate by mounting /etc/ssl/groupoffice. You can find an example in the docker-compose.yml file.

Put your certificates there and the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf will include a config file /etc/ssl/groupoffice/apache.conf. You can put the SSL directives in that file. For example:

SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/groupoffice/certificate.key
SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/groupoffice/certificate.crt
SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/ssl/groupoffice/cabundle.crt

HTTP Proxy

When using a HTTP proxy to forward requests to the Docker container you need to set some headers to tell GroupOffice about the real hostname. Read more about this here: https://groupoffice.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install/extras/httpproxy.html

Enable debug mode

You can enable debug mode with this command on the host:

docker compose exec groupoffice sed -i "s/config\['debug'\] = false;/config\['debug'\] = true;/" /etc/groupoffice/config.php

Then you can read the debug log with this command on the host:

docker compose exec groupoffice tail -f /var/lib/groupoffice/log/debug.log

Using docker cli

1. Create a "data" directory (eg. ~/Projects/docker-groupoffice-6.2/data)
2. Setup a database container that's on the default network
3. Run this command:

docker run --name groupoffice -d -p 6380:80 -v ~/Projects/docker-groupoffice/data:/var/lib/groupoffice --link go_db:db intermesh/groupoffice:26.0