Readur 📄

A powerful, modern document management system built with Rust and React. Readur provides intelligent document processing with OCR capabilities, full-text search, and a beautiful web interface designed for 2026 tech standards.

✨ Features

• 🔐 Secure Authentication: JWT-based user authentication with bcrypt password hashing
• 📤 Smart File Upload: Drag-and-drop support for PDF, images, text files, and Office documents
• 🔍 Advanced OCR: Automatic text extraction using Tesseract for searchable document content
• 🔎 Powerful Search: PostgreSQL full-text search with advanced filtering and ranking
• 👁️ Folder Monitoring: Non-destructive file watching (unlike paperless-ngx, doesn't consume source files)
• 🎨 Modern UI: Beautiful React frontend with Material-UI components and responsive design
• 🐳 Docker Ready: Complete containerization with production-ready multi-stage builds
• ⚡ High Performance: Rust backend for speed and reliability
• 📊 Analytics Dashboard: Document statistics and processing status overview

🚀 Quick Start

Using Docker Compose (Recommended)

The fastest way to get Readur running:

# Clone the repository
git clone <repository-url>
cd readur

# Start all services
docker compose up --build -d

# Access the application
open http://localhost:8000

Default login credentials:

• Username: admin
• Password: admin123

⚠️ Important: Change the default admin password immediately after first login!

What You Get

After deployment, you'll have:

• Web Interface: Modern document management UI at http://localhost:8000
• PostgreSQL Database: Document metadata and full-text search indexes
• File Storage: Persistent document storage with OCR processing
• Watch Folder: Automatic file ingestion from mounted directories
• REST API: Full API access for integrations

🐳 Docker Deployment Guide

Production Docker Compose

For production deployments, create a custom docker-compose.prod.yml:

services:
  readur:
    image: readur:latest
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    environment:
      # Core Configuration
      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://readur:${DB_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/readur
      - JWT_SECRET=${JWT_SECRET}
      - SERVER_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0:8000
      
      # File Storage
      - UPLOAD_PATH=/app/uploads
      - WATCH_FOLDER=/app/watch
      - ALLOWED_FILE_TYPES=pdf,png,jpg,jpeg,tiff,bmp,gif,txt,doc,docx
      
      # Watch Folder Settings
      - WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS=30
      - FILE_STABILITY_CHECK_MS=500
      - MAX_FILE_AGE_HOURS=168
      
      # OCR Configuration
      - OCR_LANGUAGE=eng
      - CONCURRENT_OCR_JOBS=4
      - OCR_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=300
      - MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB=100
      
      # Performance Tuning
      - MEMORY_LIMIT_MB=1024
      - CPU_PRIORITY=normal
      - ENABLE_COMPRESSION=true
    
    volumes:
      # Document storage
      - ./data/uploads:/app/uploads
      
      # Watch folder - mount your network drives here
      - /mnt/nfs/documents:/app/watch
      # or SMB: - /mnt/smb/shared:/app/watch
      # or S3: - /mnt/s3/bucket:/app/watch
    
    depends_on:
      - postgres
    restart: unless-stopped
    
    # Resource limits for production
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 2G
          cpus: '2.0'
        reservations:
          memory: 512M
          cpus: '0.5'

  postgres:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=readur
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
      - POSTGRES_DB=readur
      - POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS=--encoding=UTF-8 --lc-collate=en_US.UTF-8 --lc-ctype=en_US.UTF-8
    
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./postgres-config:/etc/postgresql/conf.d:ro
    
    # PostgreSQL optimization for document search
    command: >
      postgres
      -c shared_buffers=256MB
      -c effective_cache_size=1GB
      -c max_connections=100
      -c default_text_search_config=pg_catalog.english
    
    restart: unless-stopped
    
    # Don't expose port in production
    # ports:
    #   - "5433:5432"

volumes:
  postgres_data:
    driver: local

Environment Variables

Create a .env file for your secrets:

# Generate secure secrets
JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -base64 64)
DB_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 32)

# Save to .env file
cat > .env << EOF
JWT_SECRET=${JWT_SECRET}
DB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
EOF

Deploy with:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml --env-file .env up -d

Network Filesystem Mounts

NFS Mounts

# Mount NFS share
sudo mount -t nfs 192.168.1.100:/documents /mnt/nfs/documents

# Add to docker-compose.yml
volumes:
  - /mnt/nfs/documents:/app/watch
environment:
  - WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS=60
  - FILE_STABILITY_CHECK_MS=1000
  - FORCE_POLLING_WATCH=1

SMB/CIFS Mounts

# Mount SMB share
sudo mount -t cifs //server/share /mnt/smb/shared -o username=user,password=pass

# Docker volume configuration
volumes:
  - /mnt/smb/shared:/app/watch
environment:
  - WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS=30
  - FILE_STABILITY_CHECK_MS=2000

S3 Mounts (using s3fs)

# Mount S3 bucket
s3fs mybucket /mnt/s3/bucket -o passwd_file=~/.passwd-s3fs

# Docker configuration for S3
volumes:
  - /mnt/s3/bucket:/app/watch
environment:
  - WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS=120
  - FILE_STABILITY_CHECK_MS=5000
  - FORCE_POLLING_WATCH=1

SSL/HTTPS Setup

Use a reverse proxy like Nginx or Traefik:

Nginx Configuration

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name readur.yourdomain.com;
    
    ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key.pem;
    
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        
        # For file uploads
        client_max_body_size 100M;
        proxy_read_timeout 300s;
        proxy_send_timeout 300s;
    }
}

Traefik Configuration

services:
  readur:
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.readur.rule=Host(`readur.yourdomain.com`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.readur.tls=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.readur.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt"

Health Checks

Add health checks to your Docker configuration:

services:
  readur:
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:8000/api/health"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 40s

Backup Strategy

#!/bin/bash
# backup.sh - Automated backup script

# Backup database
docker exec readur-postgres-1 pg_dump -U readur readur | gzip > backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).sql.gz

# Backup uploaded files
tar -czf uploads_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).tar.gz -C ./data uploads/

# Clean old backups (keep 30 days)
find . -name "backup_*.sql.gz" -mtime +30 -delete
find . -name "uploads_backup_*.tar.gz" -mtime +30 -delete

Monitoring

Monitor your deployment with Docker stats:

# Real-time resource usage
docker stats

# Container logs
docker compose logs -f readur

# Watch folder activity
docker compose logs -f readur | grep watcher

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────┐
│   React Frontend │────│   Rust Backend  │────│  PostgreSQL DB  │
│   (Port 8000)   │    │   (Axum API)    │    │   (Port 5433)   │
└─────────────────┘    └─────────────────┘    └─────────────────┘
         │                       │                       │
         │              ┌─────────────────┐             │
         └──────────────│  File Storage   │─────────────┘
                        │  + OCR Engine   │
                        └─────────────────┘

📋 System Requirements

Minimum Requirements

• CPU: 2 cores
• RAM: 2GB
• Storage: 10GB free space
• OS: Linux, macOS, or Windows with Docker

Recommended for Production

• CPU: 4+ cores
• RAM: 4GB+
• Storage: 50GB+ SSD
• Network: Stable internet connection for OCR processing

🛠️ Manual Installation

For development or custom deployments without Docker:

Prerequisites

Install these dependencies on your system:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng \
    libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev \
    postgresql postgresql-contrib \
    pkg-config libclang-dev

# macOS (requires Homebrew)
brew install tesseract leptonica postgresql rust nodejs npm

# Install Rust (if not already installed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Backend Setup

1. Configure Database:

# Create database and user
sudo -u postgres psql
CREATE DATABASE readur;
CREATE USER readur_user WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'your_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE readur TO readur_user;
\q

2. Environment Configuration:

# Copy environment template
cp .env.example .env

# Edit configuration
nano .env

Required environment variables:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://readur_user:your_password@localhost/readur
JWT_SECRET=your-super-secret-jwt-key-change-this
SERVER_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0:8000
UPLOAD_PATH=./uploads
WATCH_FOLDER=./watch
ALLOWED_FILE_TYPES=pdf,png,jpg,jpeg,gif,bmp,tiff,txt,rtf,doc,docx

3. Build and Run Backend:

# Install dependencies and run
cargo build --release
cargo run

Frontend Setup

1. Install Dependencies:

cd frontend
npm install

2. Development Mode:

npm run dev
# Frontend available at http://localhost:5173

3. Production Build:

npm run build
# Built files in frontend/dist/

📖 User Guide

Getting Started

1. First Login: Use the default admin credentials to access the system
2. Upload Documents: Drag and drop files or use the upload button
3. Wait for Processing: OCR processing happens automatically in the background
4. Search and Organize: Use the powerful search features to find your documents

Supported File Types

Type	Extensions	OCR Support	Notes
PDF	.pdf	✅	Text extraction + OCR for scanned pages
Images	.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .bmp, .gif	✅	Full OCR text extraction
Text	.txt, .rtf	❌	Direct text indexing
Office	.doc, .docx	⚠️	Limited support

Using the Interface

Dashboard

• Document Statistics: Total documents, storage usage, OCR status
• Recent Activity: Latest uploads and processing status
• Quick Actions: Fast access to upload and search

Document Management

• List/Grid View: Toggle between different viewing modes
• Sorting: Sort by date, name, size, or file type
• Filtering: Filter by tags, file types, and OCR status
• Bulk Actions: Select multiple documents for batch operations

Advanced Search

• Full-text Search: Search within document content
• Metadata Filters: Filter by upload date, file size, type
• Tag System: Organize documents with custom tags
• OCR Status: Find processed vs. pending documents

Folder Watching

• Non-destructive: Unlike paperless-ngx, source files remain untouched
• Automatic Processing: New files are detected and processed automatically
• Configurable: Set custom watch directories

Tips for Best Results

1. OCR Quality: Higher resolution images (300+ DPI) produce better OCR results
2. File Organization: Use consistent naming conventions for easier searching
3. Regular Backups: Backup both database and file storage regularly
4. Performance: For large document collections, consider increasing server resources

🔧 Configuration

Environment Variables

All application settings can be configured via environment variables:

Core Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
DATABASE_URL	postgresql://readur:readur@localhost/readur	PostgreSQL connection string
JWT_SECRET	your-secret-key	Secret key for JWT tokens ⚠️ Change in production!
SERVER_ADDRESS	0.0.0.0:8000	Server bind address and port

File Storage & Upload

Variable	Default	Description
UPLOAD_PATH	./uploads	Document storage directory
ALLOWED_FILE_TYPES	pdf,txt,doc,docx,png,jpg,jpeg	Comma-separated allowed file extensions

Watch Folder Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
WATCH_FOLDER	./watch	Directory to monitor for new files
WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS	30	Polling interval for network filesystems (seconds)
FILE_STABILITY_CHECK_MS	500	Time to wait for file write completion (milliseconds)
MAX_FILE_AGE_HOURS	(none)	Skip files older than this many hours
FORCE_POLLING_WATCH	(none)	Force polling mode even for local filesystems

OCR & Processing Settings

Note: These settings can also be configured per-user via the web interface

Variable	Default	Description
OCR_LANGUAGE	eng	OCR language code (eng, fra, deu, spa, etc.)
CONCURRENT_OCR_JOBS	4	Maximum parallel OCR processes
OCR_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	300	OCR processing timeout per file
MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB	50	Maximum file size for processing
AUTO_ROTATE_IMAGES	true	Automatically rotate images for better OCR
ENABLE_IMAGE_PREPROCESSING	true	Apply image enhancement before OCR

Search & Performance

Variable	Default	Description
SEARCH_RESULTS_PER_PAGE	25	Default number of search results per page
SEARCH_SNIPPET_LENGTH	200	Length of text snippets in search results
FUZZY_SEARCH_THRESHOLD	0.8	Similarity threshold for fuzzy search (0.0-1.0)
MEMORY_LIMIT_MB	512	Memory limit for OCR processes
CPU_PRIORITY	normal	CPU priority: low, normal, high

Data Management

Variable	Default	Description
RETENTION_DAYS	(none)	Auto-delete documents after N days
ENABLE_AUTO_CLEANUP	false	Enable automatic cleanup of old documents
ENABLE_COMPRESSION	false	Compress stored documents to save space
ENABLE_BACKGROUND_OCR	true	Process OCR in background queue

Example Production Configuration

# Core settings
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://readur:secure_password@postgres:5432/readur
JWT_SECRET=your-very-long-random-secret-key-generated-with-openssl
SERVER_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0:8000

# File handling
UPLOAD_PATH=/app/uploads
ALLOWED_FILE_TYPES=pdf,png,jpg,jpeg,tiff,bmp,gif,txt,rtf,doc,docx

# Watch folder for NFS mount
WATCH_FOLDER=/mnt/nfs/documents
WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS=60
FILE_STABILITY_CHECK_MS=1000
MAX_FILE_AGE_HOURS=168
FORCE_POLLING_WATCH=1

# OCR optimization
OCR_LANGUAGE=eng
CONCURRENT_OCR_JOBS=8
OCR_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=600
MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB=200
AUTO_ROTATE_IMAGES=true
ENABLE_IMAGE_PREPROCESSING=true

# Performance tuning
MEMORY_LIMIT_MB=2048
CPU_PRIORITY=high
ENABLE_COMPRESSION=true
ENABLE_BACKGROUND_OCR=true

# Search optimization
SEARCH_RESULTS_PER_PAGE=50
SEARCH_SNIPPET_LENGTH=300
FUZZY_SEARCH_THRESHOLD=0.7

# Data management
RETENTION_DAYS=2555  # 7 years
ENABLE_AUTO_CLEANUP=true

Runtime Settings vs Environment Variables

Some settings can be configured in two ways:

1. Environment Variables: Set at container startup, affects the entire application
2. User Settings: Configured per-user via the web interface, stored in database

Environment variables take precedence and provide system-wide defaults. User settings override these defaults for individual users where applicable.

Settings configurable via web interface:

• OCR language preferences
• Search result limits
• File type restrictions
• OCR processing options
• Data retention policies

Configuration Priority

Settings are applied in this order (later values override earlier ones):

1. Application defaults (built into the code)
2. Environment variables (system-wide configuration)
3. User settings (per-user database settings via web interface)

This allows for flexible deployment where system administrators can set defaults while users can customize their experience.

Quick Reference - Essential Variables

For a minimal production deployment, configure these essential variables:

# Security (REQUIRED)
JWT_SECRET=your-secure-random-key-here
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@host:port/database

# File Storage
UPLOAD_PATH=/app/uploads
WATCH_FOLDER=/path/to/mounted/folder

# Watch Folder (for network mounts)
WATCH_INTERVAL_SECONDS=60
FORCE_POLLING_WATCH=1

# Performance
CONCURRENT_OCR_JOBS=4
MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB=100

Database Tuning

For better search performance with large document collections:

-- Increase shared_buffers for better caching
ALTER SYSTEM SET shared_buffers = '256MB';

-- Optimize for full-text search
ALTER SYSTEM SET default_text_search_config = 'pg_catalog.english';

-- Restart PostgreSQL after changes

🔌 API Reference

Authentication Endpoints

# Register new user
POST /api/auth/register
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "username": "john_doe",
  "email": "john@example.com",
  "password": "secure_password"
}

# Login
POST /api/auth/login
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "username": "john_doe",
  "password": "secure_password"
}

# Get current user
GET /api/auth/me
Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>

Document Management

# Upload document
POST /api/documents
Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>
Content-Type: multipart/form-data
file: <binary_file_data>

# List documents
GET /api/documents?limit=50&offset=0
Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>

# Download document
GET /api/documents/{id}/download
Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>

Search

# Search documents
GET /api/search?query=contract&limit=20
Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>

# Advanced search with filters
GET /api/search?query=invoice&mime_types=application/pdf&tags=important
Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>

🧪 Testing

Run All Tests

# Backend tests
cargo test

# Frontend tests
cd frontend && npm test

# Integration tests with Docker
docker compose -f docker-compose.test.yml up --build

Test Coverage

# Install cargo-tarpaulin for coverage
cargo install cargo-tarpaulin

# Generate coverage report
cargo tarpaulin --out Html

🔒 Security Considerations

Production Deployment

1. Change Default Credentials: Update admin password immediately
2. Use Strong JWT Secret: Generate a secure random key
3. Enable HTTPS: Use a reverse proxy with SSL/TLS
4. Database Security: Use strong passwords and restrict network access
5. File Permissions: Ensure proper file system permissions
6. Regular Updates: Keep dependencies and base images updated

Recommended Production Setup

# Use environment-specific secrets
JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -base64 64)

# Restrict database access
# Only allow connections from application container

# Use read-only file system where possible
# Mount uploads and watch folders as separate volumes

🚀 Deployment Options

Docker Swarm

version: '3.8'
services:
  readur:
    image: readur:latest
    deploy:
      replicas: 2
      restart_policy:
        condition: on-failure
    networks:
      - readur-network
    secrets:
      - jwt_secret
      - db_password

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: readur
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: readur
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: readur
        image: readur:latest
        env:
        - name: JWT_SECRET
          valueFrom:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: readur-secrets
              key: jwt-secret

Cloud Platforms

• AWS: Use ECS with RDS PostgreSQL
• Google Cloud: Deploy to Cloud Run with Cloud SQL
• Azure: Use Container Instances with Azure Database
• DigitalOcean: App Platform with Managed Database

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

Development Setup

# Fork and clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/readur.git
cd readur

# Create a feature branch
git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature

# Make your changes and test
cargo test
cd frontend && npm test

# Submit a pull request

Code Style

• Rust: Follow rustfmt and clippy recommendations
• Frontend: Use Prettier and ESLint configurations
• Commits: Use conventional commit format

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Tesseract OCR for text extraction
• Axum for the web framework
• Material-UI for the beautiful frontend components
• PostgreSQL for robust full-text search

📞 Support

• Documentation: Check this README and inline code comments
• Issues: Report bugs and request features on GitHub Issues
• Discussions: Join community discussions on GitHub Discussions

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Made with ❤️ and ☕ by the Readur team