Setting up a public SearXNG instance

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. This guide sets up a working instance that can be accessed using a domain over HTTPS. Features include:

• Self hosted
• No user tracking
• No user profiling
• About 70 supported search engines
• Easy integration with any search engine
• Cookies are not used by default
• Secure, encrypted connections (HTTPS/SSL)

Installation

Install the required packages.

apt install git nginx -y

Open http and https ports.

iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
netfilter-persistent save
ufw allow 80
ufw allow 443

Clone the SearXNG Repository.

git clone https://github.com/searxng/searxng searxng
cd searxng

Installing SearXNG, Filtron and Morty.

./utils/searx.sh install all
./utils/filtron.sh install all
./utils/morty.sh install all

Check that both filtron and morty are running.

systemctl status filtron
systemctl status morty

Configure Nginx

Delete the default site.

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Create a new file /etc/nginx/sites-available/searxng.conf and add the following:

server {

    # Listens on http
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    # Your server name
    server_name searx.example.org;
     
    # If you want to log user activity, comment these
    access_log /dev/null;
    error_log  /dev/null;
                
    # Searx reverse proxy
    location / {
            proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:4004/;
                
            proxy_set_header   Host             $host;
            proxy_set_header   Connection       $http_connection;
            proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header   X-Scheme         $scheme;
            proxy_set_header   X-Script-Name    /searx;
    }
        
    location /searx/static {
            alias /usr/local/searx/searx-src/searx/static;
    }
        
    # Morty reverse proxy
    location /morty {
            proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:3000/;
               
            proxy_set_header   Host             $host;
            proxy_set_header   Connection       $http_connection;
            proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header   X-Scheme         $scheme;
    }
}
        

Now create a symbolic link to enable this site.

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/searxng.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/searxng.conf

Restart Nginx and SearXNG.

systemctl restart nginx
service uwsgi restart searx

Configure HTTPS with Certbot

Install certbot.

apt install python3-certbot-nginx

Install a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate to Nginx and optionally let it configure HTTPS for you. Detailed instructions and additional information.

certbot --nginx

SearXNG should now be available from your domain.

Configuration

You can change settings by editing /etc/searxng/settings.yml.

Contribution