Docker design/use a pain and auth doesn't work, and no clue how to enable it

[duhmojo]

Description
Ok, first tried using the suggested docker run as, but docker is well understood to not know a volume is from a file and not a directory unless the file exists locally. How that that going to be the case if the database file is created by the process, and so isn't present the first time it starts? I had to touch /var/filebrowser/database.db and luckily it works. I tried specifying a config with a different DB location, it didn't use it.

docker run -d \
  --name filebrowser \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 8080:80 \
  -v /var/unity/dist:/srv \
  -v /var/filebrowser/database.db:/database.db \
  -v /var/filebrowser/settings.json:/.filebrowser.json \
  -e PUID=$(id -u) \
  -e GUID=$(id -g) \
  -e FB_NOAUTH=false \
  filebrowser/filebrowser

The created DB is JSON based, so the file exists and should likely work.

Second when it started, there was no auth. No login. So I went about trying to get the config working but I have no examples of a setting json with auth set. There's thefilebrowser config set --auth.method=json command, that updates the DB not the config, and it times out?

# docker exec -it filebrowser sh
# ./filebrowser config set --auth.method=json
2025/03/26 15:28:43 Using database: /database.db
2025/03/26 15:28:44 timeout

So how is the container supposed to work again? Thanks.

Expected behaviour

What is happening instead?

Additional context

How to reproduce?

Files

[popiazaza]

It shouldn't need to be that exact path, but yeah, you need to set an empty file first, otherwise Docker will assume you meant a directory and create an empty one for you.

For config json file, refer to: https://filebrowser.org/cli/filebrowser-config-set#options

For example, if you want auth method to be json:

{
  "port": 80,
  "baseURL": "",
  "address": "",
  "log": "stdout",
  "database": "/database/filebrowser.db",
  "root": "/srv",
  "auth": {
    "method": "json",
  }
}

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[rsteckler]

I'd recommend this be solved.
It's simple enough. Allow mounting a directory rather than the file and create it yourself in the supplied directory.

Right now using FB in docker means going through extra setup steps that aren't required by any other similar images.