This Docker Compose configuration sets up BentoPDF with a Tailscale sidecar container, enabling secure access to your self-hosted PDF management interface over your private Tailscale network. With this setup, your BentoPDF instance remains private and accessible only from authorized devices on your Tailnet, keeping your documents protected from public exposure.
BentoPDF is an open-source, self-hosted web application for viewing, organizing, and managing PDF documents. It provides a clean, modern interface focused on simplicity and performance, making it ideal for personal document libraries, internal teams, or homelab environments that require private document access.
- 📄 In-Browser PDF Viewer – View PDF files directly from a modern web interface.
- 🗂 Document Organization – Browse and manage PDFs stored on your server.
- 🔍 Fast & Lightweight – Minimal overhead with a focus on performance.
- 🧭 Clean, Minimal UI – Simple and distraction-free user experience.
- 🐳 Docker-Friendly – Designed to run easily in containerized environments.
- 🔐 Privacy-First – Your documents stay entirely on your own infrastructure.
- 📦 Open Source – Fully open-source and self-hostable.
PDF files often contain sensitive personal or business information. Self-hosting BentoPDF ensures full control and ownership of your documents, without relying on third-party cloud storage or services. Combined with Tailscale, BentoPDF becomes a private document portal that is securely accessible from anywhere while remaining invisible to the public internet.
In this deployment, a Tailscale sidecar container (for example tailscale-bentopdf) runs the Tailscale client and joins your private Tailscale network. The main bentopdf service uses:
network_mode: service:tailscale-bentopdf
This configuration routes all traffic through the Tailscale interface, ensuring that the BentoPDF web UI is accessible only via your Tailscale network. This provides a simple and secure way to access your PDF library from all trusted devices.