🧭 Deploying CVAT and Accessing It via Pinggy Tunnel (Developer Guide)

📋 Prerequisites

Requirement	Version / Notes
Docker & Docker Compose	20 +
Git	latest
Linux terminal	—
Pinggy account (free)	https://pinggy.io

🧱 1. Clone the CVAT repository

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/roundspecs/cvat
cd cvat

🚀 2. Start CVAT with the overlay compose files

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml \
               -f docker-compose.settings_overlay.local.yml up -d

✳️ Wait about a minute for containers to initialize (Postgres, Redis, Traefik, etc.).

Check containers:

docker ps

You should see cvat_server, cvat_ui, and traefik running.

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🧠 3. Verify the CSRF domains inside Django (optional)

docker exec -it cvat_server bash -ic \
"python3 ~/manage.py shell -c 'from django.conf import settings; print(settings.CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS)'"

✅ Output should contain ['https://*.pinggy.link'].

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👑 4. Create a superuser (admin account)

docker exec -it cvat_server bash -ic 'python3 ~/manage.py createsuperuser'

Enter a username and password when prompted. You’ll use these to log in to CVAT later.

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🌐 5. Start a Pinggy tunnel to port 8080

See the dashboard in https://pinggy.io for details.

🧪 6. Access CVAT

1. Open the URL printed by Pinggy (e.g. https://<random>.a.free.pinggy.link).
2. You’ll see the CVAT login screen.
3. Log in with the credentials created in step 4.
4. Create projects and tasks normally — no “CSRF Failed” errors.

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🔄 7. Restart later sessions

If you close/reboot, just run:

cd ~/cvat
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml \
               -f docker-compose.settings_overlay.local.yml up -d
ssh -p 443 -R0:localhost:8080 a.pinggy.io

That’s it — no need to edit settings again.

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🧼 8. Shut down CVAT (when done)

docker compose down

To remove stored data completely (Postgres / Redis volumes):

docker compose down -v

Resources

• https://epidemiology.tech/virtualization-containers/docker/cvat-install-behind-nginx-reverse-proxy/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/computervision/comments/1j4qzwl/issue_while_exposing_cvat_publically/