webtrees - Self-Hosted Genealogy and Family Tree Server

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## Overview

webtrees is a mature open source online collaborative genealogy application. It gives you and your family interactive family trees, pedigree and descendancy charts, individual and family records, reports, media galleries, and per-user accounts, all through a clean web interface, so relatives can explore and contribute to your shared family history from any browser. This image delivers webtrees fully installed, configured, and security hardened, so you have a working genealogy server running within minutes of launch instead of assembling a web server, database, and PHP runtime and then stepping through the setup wizard yourself.

## Why This Image vs a Manual Install

With a standard webtrees deployment you must install nginx, MySQL, PHP and its extensions, download and place the application, create a database and user, run the browser setup wizard, and create the first administrator. This image completes all of that for you before first boot, and even imports a small demo family tree so the pedigree charts are populated the moment you sign in. Launch the instance, read your unique credential, and start building your tree.

## Application Stack

webtrees runs on nginx with PHP 8.3 and the extensions webtrees needs, backed by MySQL 8.0. The database datadir and the application code and data each live on their own dedicated, independently resizable EBS data volume, separate from the OS disk. Authentication is database backed, so accounts live in the application database and the administrator is a real account with a hashed password, not a shared default. Public self registration is disabled by default.

## Security Hardening

This image follows a secure-by-default approach:

• No default or shared credentials: on the first boot of your instance, a one-shot service generates a fresh MySQL password, a fresh application database password, and a fresh webtrees administrator password unique to that instance, and stores them only in a root-only file
• No open installer: first boot drives the webtrees setup to completion and writes the configuration file, so the privileged setup wizard is never reachable on a running instance
• Database on loopback: MySQL binds to the loopback interface only; the security group opens ports 22 and 80
• Dedicated data volumes: the database and the application data each live on their own disk, surviving OS-disk changes and resizable independently

## Concrete Use Cases

• Family history for a household or society: a private, self-hosted home for your genealogy that you run and control in your own AWS account, with per-user accounts for relatives
• GEDCOM exploration: import your existing GEDCOM files and browse them as interactive pedigree and descendancy charts, individual and family pages, and reports
• Collaborative research: a shared genealogy site where multiple contributors add records, sources, and media under a public/private access policy

## AWS Integration

Deploy on any EC2 instance type. Back up your database and family history using EBS snapshots or AWS Backup on the dedicated data volumes. Resize the database and application volumes independently as your tree grows. Terminate reverse-proxy TLS with your own domain and certificate for public access.

## Getting Started

Read your credential from the root-only file, open the web interface in your browser, sign in, then import your own GEDCOM files or start building your family tree. webtrees serves on whatever hostname or IP address you reach it on.

## cloudimg Support

24/7 technical support by email and chat. Help with deployment, GEDCOM import and family tree configuration, version upgrades, performance tuning, and MySQL database administration.

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