Deploying Jina Serve Open-Source Neural Search and AI Serving Framework on Ubuntu 24.04

A developer deployed Jina Serve, an open-source framework for neural search and multimodal AI, on Ubuntu 24.04 using Docker Compose and Traefik for automatic HTTPS. The setup includes a custom text executor that processes documents via /index and /search endpoints, with the entire stack containerized and secured behind a reverse proxy.

Jina Serve is an open-source framework for building neural search and multimodal AI applications, with a cloud-native runtime that handles dynamic batching, async streaming, and microservice orchestration. This guide deploys a Jina Flow with a custom text executor using Docker Compose, with Traefik handling automatic HTTPS in front of the gateway. By the end, you'll have a Jina Flow serving an /index and /search API securely at your domain. 1. Create the project directory structure: bash $ mkdir -p ~/jina-serve/executor $ cd ~/jina-serve 2. Create the executor module: bash $ nano executor/executor.py python from jina import Executor, requests from docarray import BaseDoc, DocList class TextDoc BaseDoc : text: str = "" class TextProcessor Executor : @requests on="/index" def index self, docs: DocList TextDoc , kwargs - DocList TextDoc : for doc in docs: if doc.text: doc.text = doc.text.upper return docs @requests on="/search" def search self, docs: DocList TextDoc , kwargs - DocList TextDoc : return docs 3. Pin the executor's Python dependencies: bash $ nano executor/requirements.txt jina==3.34.0 docarray =0.40.0 4. Wire the executor into Jina's loader: bash $ nano executor/config.yml jtype: TextProcessor py modules: - executor.py 5. Define the Flow: bash $ nano flow.yml jtype: Flow with: protocol: http port: 8080 executors: - name: textprocessor uses: executor/config.yml 6. Build the container image with the Flow baked in: bash $ nano Dockerfile FROM jinaai/jina:3.34.0-py39-standard WORKDIR /app COPY executor/requirements.txt /app/executor/requirements.txt RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r /app/executor/requirements.txt COPY executor /app/executor COPY flow.yml /app/flow.yml ENTRYPOINT "jina", "flow", "--uses", "flow.yml" 7. Create the environment file: bash $ nano .env DOMAIN=jina.example.com LETSENCRYPT EMAIL=admin@example.com JINA LOG LEVEL=INFO 1. Create the Compose manifest: bash $ nano docker-compose.yml services: traefik: image: traefik:v3.6 container name: traefik command: - "--providers.docker=true" - "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false" - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80" - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443" - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.to=websecure" - "--entrypoints.web.http.redirections.entrypoint.scheme=https" - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.httpchallenge=true" - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.httpchallenge.entrypoint=web" - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.email=${LETSENCRYPT EMAIL}" - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.storage=/letsencrypt/acme.json" ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro" - "./letsencrypt:/letsencrypt" restart: unless-stopped jina: build: context: . dockerfile: Dockerfile container name: jina-flow environment: - JINA LOG LEVEL=${JINA LOG LEVEL} expose: - "8080" labels: - "traefik.enable=true" - "traefik.http.routers.jina.rule=Host ${DOMAIN} " - "traefik.http.routers.jina.entrypoints=websecure" - "traefik.http.routers.jina.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt" - "traefik.http.services.jina.loadbalancer.server.port=8080" restart: unless-stopped 2. Build and start the stack: bash $ docker compose up -d --build 3. Verify the services and tail logs: bash $ docker compose ps $ docker compose logs 1. Check the status endpoint: bash $ curl https://jina.example.com/status {"jina":{"jina":"3.34.0","docarray":"0.40.1"... 2. POST a document to /index: bash $ curl -X POST https://jina.example.com/index \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"data": {"text": "hello world"} }' {"data": {"id":null,"text":"HELLO WORLD"} ,...} 3. POST to /search to see the passthrough endpoint: bash $ curl -X POST https://jina.example.com/search \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"data": {"text": "test message"} }' 4. Submit a batch of documents: bash $ curl -X POST https://jina.example.com/index \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"data": {"text": "first"}, {"text": "second"}, {"text": "third"} }' Jina Serve is running and serving requests over HTTPS. From here you can: For the full guide with additional tips, visit the original article on Vultr Docs .