This guide uses Synology's native Docker manager, Container Manager. This avoids Portainer which is used in Marius' guide, but is essentially the same official install process through Docker on any other system.

Prerequisites

• DiskStation Manager (DSM) 7.2+.. If you have an up-to-date Synology device you should be good to go.
• Container Manager. Can be installed from Package Center in DSM.

Prepare Project Folder

1. Open File Station.
2. Navigate to the directory where you'd like to store Actual Budget. This is up to the user to decide, but something like /docker/ is common.
3. Click Create button and select Create folder. Name the folder anything -- actual-budget is fine.
4. Navigate into this Project Folder, click Create button and select Create folder. This time, name it data.

Create Project

1. Open Container Manager.
2. Click Project tab to open the Project view.
3. Click Create button to create a new Project.
   • Project name: This can be anything -- actual-budget is fine here too. It doesn't have to match the folder.
   • Path: Click Set Path and select the folder you created in Prepare Folder.
   • Source: Select Create docker-compose.yml.

Adjust docker-compose

Actual provides a docker-compose file you can use at their GitHub repo. Here, I'll provide the minimum version you need to get up and running.

You can customize your docker-compose.yml, but I'll also provide the minimum required mappings to get you going. If you feel like you want to dig deeper, check out the other server configuration options.

Setup YAML

Copy and paste this into the Conatiner Manager docker-compose.yml area:

services:
  actual_server:
    image: docker.io/actualbudget/actual-server:latest
    ports:
      - "5006:5006"
    volumes:
      - ./actual-budget/data:/data
    restart: unless-stopped

You can edit this YAML in the Container Manager editor, and the output will be saved to your Project Folder after the Project is saved (you can always go edit this later!).

Required changes

The only variable you must change is the volumes argument. This is made up of your local path (./actual-budget/data in this YAML) and the mapped location in Actual (/data in this YAML). You'll need to replace ./actual-budget/data with the full path to the data folder you created in your Project Folder.

For example, if you made your folder at /docker/actual-budget/data on a basic Synology setup, your volumes argument should be - /volume1/docker/actual-budget/data.

Optional changes

-image: This is where the Actual Budget Docker image is sources from. The default is from Docker hub, but you can switch this to ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual to use GiHub's container registry. They both function exactly the same way.

-ports: The default port is 5006. This means you'll visit https://<your-nas-ip>:5006 to use Actual. You can switch the first port to change it -- if you want port 1234, set this to '1234:5006'.

-restart: The unless-stopped rule means that Actual Budget will try to restart unless you specifically stop the container. Other options are here but you probably want the default.

Again, you can dive deeper into the server configuration options, but the above options are all that are required.

Finish Project

1. Once your YAML is all set up, click Next button.
2. Web Portal is not necessary. If you don't know what it is, just click Next!
3. Confirm everything looks good in the Summary. You can check Start the project once it is created, then click Done.
4. Visit the web interface wherever you set it up (https://<your-nas-ip>:5006 most likely) to ensure it works.

Troubleshooting

This installation is pretty basic, so if the web UI isn't working then it's probably an error in your docker-compose.yaml.

1. Did you create a data folder inside your Project Folder?
2. Did you correctly add the path to data in the volumes part of the YAML?

If both of these are true, then you have a problem elsewhere in your Synology setup.