Last night I migrate from 0.10.4 to 2.1.9. It was an adventure, but loving SilverBullet v2. Wanted to give back to the community and looking for feedback to improve the guide.
SilverBullet install using Alpine Linux
Container
I use Proxmox, but this process should work for other containers and virtual machines using Alpine Linux (Alpine).
Alpine LXC container.
- Memory: 512 MiB
- Swap: 512 MiB
- Cores: 1
- Root disk: 2 GB
As of October 17, 2025, Alpine v3.22 (stable) does not have a go package meeting SilverBullet’s go 1.25.1 dependency. However, Alpine edge (testing) does.
Migrate from Alpine v3.22 to edge
Upgrade
Upgrade v3.22 packages before proceeding.
apk update
apk upgrade
reboot
Reboot if kernel or core package updates.
Update repositories
Edit /etc/apk/repositories and replace current version, v3.22, with new version, edge.
Results
https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main
https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community
Migrate
Upgrade to the new version.
apk update
apk upgrade --available && sync
reboot
Check os-release.
cat /etc/os-release
Results from migrating to edge.
NAME="Alpine Linux"
ID=alpine
VERSION_ID=3.23.0_alpha20251016
PRETTY_NAME="Alpine Linux edge"
HOME_URL="https://alpinelinux.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/issues"
Packages
Install build and utility packages.
apk update && apk upgrade && apk add make deno go git zip curl
User account
Create a group and system account silverbullet for running SilverBullet.
addgroup -S silverbullet
adduser -D -S -G silverbullet silverbullet
-S sets group and user as system account.
-D sets no password for the account.
The user account’s home, /home/silverbullet, will be where SilverBullet stores markdown files.
Building
SilverBullet releases are not built against musl so downloading the binary release for linux is not an option. (Is this true? Unverified.) Correction: binary release should work per Zef.
mkdir /tmp/working
cd /tmp/working
curl -LO https://github.com/silverbulletmd/silverbullet/archive/refs/tags/2.1.9.tar.gz
tar xvf 2.1.9.tar.gz
cd silverbullet-2.1.9
make
cp /tmp/working/silverbullet-2.1.9/silverbullet /usr/local/bin/
OpenRC
Create OpenRC init script.
touch /etc/init.d/silverbullet
chmod +x /etc/init.d/silverbullet
copy+paste
#!/sbin/openrc-run
description="SilverBullet note taking app"
pidfile="/run/silverbullet.pid"
command_background=true
command="/usr/local/bin/silverbullet -"
command_args="-L0.0.0.0 /home/silverbullet"
command_user="silverbullet:silverbullet"
depend() {
need net
}
Test using rc-service silverbullet start. If all works, then
rc-update add silverbullet default
Done!
Testing
I found it useful during the initial install to execute silverbullet from the terminal, however, a system account by default does not have a shell set (/sbin/nologin). Either edit /etc/passwd or install the shadow package, apk add shadow, and use chsh command to set the shell to /bin/sh. Once complete, launch silverbullet to review its output.
su - silverbullet silverbullet -L0.0.0.0 /home/silverbullet
Once testing is complete, restore the account’s shell to /sbin/nologin.
Good to know and I should not assume.