Bahmni Installation Approach

Software Bahmni
1

Hey there!

This is Arun V G, software engineer.

A few days back I had created a topic that I was stuck with Bahmni Installation.

As I had stated earlier in that, I am still facing issues installing it.

Progress: I have downloaded OMOD files of 4 backend repos, setup the bahmni frontend build and in the yarn ci step within the ui subfolder, facing some potential warnings that aborts the build process and generates broken styling when deployed, troubleshooting that!

I know that the recommended approach is to use Docker Compose as stated in the Bahmni Wiki Documentation but that didn’t work smoothly either.

Can anyone tell me how to make the Docker Compose Approach work properly? Or is there any other approach to set it up in Docker? Any tips?

I am currently trying to pull all the dependencies locally and do it, building frontend alone in Docker as Ruby installation in windows is a issue. Using OpenMRS Standalone Platform v2.5.0 for uploading the OMOD backend files to it. This approach is hard, takes many days and can’t even say whether it’s a guaranteed approach to success or to implement it but since I don’t got any option, I am trying this difficult part.

Any bright ideas to do it way simpler? Please feel free to reply to this topic. I appreciate it. Thanks!

2

@mohant @rahu1ramesh please help

3

Hi Arun,

Thanks for sharing the detailed context — really appreciate the persistence you’ve shown so far.

You’re absolutely right that manually setting up Bahmni by uploading OMODs to the OpenMRS Standalone and building frontend assets outside of Docker is both time-consuming and brittle. Fortunately, the Docker Compose-based setup is indeed the most streamlined and repeatable way to get Bahmni running locally — especially for development.

Here are a few tips to help you get Docker Compose working smoothly:

:white_check_mark: Recommended Setup Approach: Bahmni Lite using Docker

The Bahmni team maintains a Docker-based development setup that simplifies local deployment. It includes:

  • OpenMRS with pre-configured OMODs
  • Bahmni Apps frontend
  • Bahmni Configs
  • Dependencies like MySQL, OpenELIS, Odoo, etc.

:wrench: Steps to Try (Clean Setup):

  1. Clone the Docker setup repo:

    git clone https://github.com/Bahmni/bahmni-docker.git
cd bahmni-docker

  2. Create a branch for your Bahmni version: Default is typically for the latest. For specific versions (e.g., bahmni-erp-implementations-1.0.0), switch to a new branch and change the image versions.

  3. Start the environment:

Run the below script and choose the appropriate option.

./run-bahmni.sh .env

  1. Access Bahmni:

  2. For frontend development:

    • You can mount your local bahmni-app code to the bahmni-web service for live development.

:spouting_whale: If Docker Is Failing

  • Make sure Docker Desktop is running properly (especially on Windows — WSL2 preferred).
  • Ensure ports 8080, 3306, etc., are free.
  • Run docker system prune -a (carefully) to remove stale containers/images.
  • Increase Docker’s memory allocation to at least 4–6 GB for Bahmni to run smoothly.

:red_exclamation_mark: Important Notes

  • If you’re only interested in developing Bahmni frontend, it’s perfectly fine to run backend via Docker and map frontend locally.

:light_bulb: TL;DR (Simpler Path)

  • Use the official bahmni-docker setup.
  • Run the full stack with docker-compose up -d.
  • Mount your local frontend code if needed.
  • Avoid OpenMRS Standalone and avoid building everything from scratch.

Let me know if you’d like a working sample docker-compose.override.yml or help debugging specific container errors — happy to assist.