Admin and User scenario.
Hello!
I know that Immich dev's are working on the permissions for users but for meantime I would like to run 2 instances of Immich. One would be able to do everything, the other would be able to view and download what the first one has.
The current option of sharing albums is not good. I need face detection for both users so I can view pictures by person and use search.
I'm not a programmer or a developer so I was sitting 2 weeks with chatGPT trying to make it work but I wasn't able to.
Does anyone know how to make it work?
My main issue was that both instances were running, they had 2 separate ports for Web UI, no errors in logs but when I tried to access them it was not possible.
I added a text file from chatGPT that I was trying to make it work.
42 Replies
:wave: Hey @Piotr,
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If this ticket can be closed you can use the /close command, and re-open it later if needed.Would partner sharing not do what you want?
Partner sharing does not include shared faces
I don't really see any scenario where two Immich instances would fix your issue.
I'm like totally confused why you think that'd help
Besides, using chatgpt for this kind of stuff is just a pretty bad idea and unlikely to yield good results
You should understand what you're doing - especially when dealing with something as precious as your family's memories
Ah right. Apart from that, it'd do the trick if I'm understanding correctly. Perhaps in the future, with workflows, people albums would get it the rest of the way.
Yeah. As OP already mentioned we do plan on reworking the entire ownership part and that will then also allow to share faces and stuff
So it will be possible at some point
I made it work on PhotoPrism but PhotoPrism has terrible face detection.
Two instances can share DB and config files. It was working but not in Immich.
Immich out of the box has multi user support
There's like no reason to spin up multiple instances for this
Like I said. I'm not a programmer or a dev. I needed help so I used chatGPT. It worked for photoprism but not Immich.
I also use Photoprism and don't understand what you're doing with 2 instances using the same database lol.
But yeah, the 2 have very different philosophies to multi-user/sharing
Yes there is. You need to share an album with other person and that album has no search options.
Ok. How would this be solved by multiple instances?
1 instance does face detection and all administration. 2nd is for viewing. I have people technologically impaired that might remove pictures by accident.
There's a trash by default
2nd instance "viewer" would have access to all face detection results stored in DB
Or you mount the images as a read only external library
So now I need to check it every time someone uses it.
You would also need to check it and restore from your primary instance if someone deleted something from the "view" instancen, no?
Can I add pictures to it as the "admin" ?
I'm assuming you're scenario only works by restricting write permissions on the other instance?
Photoprism's recommendation is multi-instances only when you want separate libraries for multiple people.
Regardless, Photoprism has view only multi-user support.
Nope
Only from the filesystem
No, viewer would have read only access to the DB. he would not be able to delete.
I.e. by copying files to a folder
You cannot do that
Immich won't be able to cope with a read only database
It's just not designed to handle this use case
I did it on photoprism. It was on DB level. Editing the 2nd DB user privileges .
Sure. Photoprism and Immich are two very different pieces of software
Yes, I know. I was hoping I can do the same on Immich.
Yeah, and I was telling you "You cannot do that"
To which you replied "but I did it with photoprism" 😅
Why not?
Because it isn't designed for that
It'll try to do database writes and just fails
It won't even boot up because it does database writes on start up
And assuming it would, it would fail the moment you try to log in
It's not built for this use case
Depends. Config writes I can permit, but picture DB not, it should work.
Immich's entire architecture is assuming write access to the database
I suppose you could only limit the assets table, that's fair. With that your users could still do stupid things though
But the pictures would be protected. I'm more worried of accidental delete then entering settings and changing things.
Do you need to add new photos through the UI or would you also be fine adding them on the file system?
I didn't make a decision yet. I'll work with what I can but I would prefer to use the UI. The "admin" instance would have that ability.
Basically you could simplify your life a lot if you just only have one instance that's using an external library that's mounted as read only
And then you just put new assets in that folder on your disk
That's an intended use case of Immich, with guides etc. Significantly more straightforward
If it's read only, how does face detection and search work? Like normal?
Yes
Everything behaves as normal
You just cannot modify the assets. So like, you cannot change their time, location, tags, ...
Or delete them
Only adding pictures would be let's say "manual", right?
Yes
I do not need to change anything. I don't expect to have any extensive data being added to the photos.
I'll look into it and report back! Thank you
For reference
Thank you!