bitnami-containers/bitnami/neo4j

Bitnami Secure Image for Neo4j

What is Neo4j?

Neo4j is a high performance graph store with all the features expected of a mature and robust database, like a friendly query language and ACID transactions.

Overview of Neo4j Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

docker run --name neo4j bitnami/neo4j:latest

You can find the default credentials and available configuration options in the Environment Variables section.

⚠️ Important Notice: Upcoming changes to the Bitnami Catalog

Beginning August 28th, 2025, Bitnami will evolve its public catalog to offer a curated set of hardened, security-focused images under the new Bitnami Secure Images initiative. As part of this transition:

• Granting community users access for the first time to security-optimized versions of popular container images.
• Bitnami will begin deprecating support for non-hardened, Debian-based software images in its free tier and will gradually remove non-latest tags from the public catalog. As a result, community users will have access to a reduced number of hardened images. These images are published only under the “latest” tag and are intended for development purposes
• Starting August 28th, over two weeks, all existing container images, including older or versioned tags (e.g., 2.50.0, 10.6), will be migrated from the public catalog (docker.io/bitnami) to the “Bitnami Legacy” repository (docker.io/bitnamilegacy), where they will no longer receive updates.
• For production workloads and long-term support, users are encouraged to adopt Bitnami Secure Images, which include hardened containers, smaller attack surfaces, CVE transparency (via VEX/KEV), SBOMs, and enterprise support.

These changes aim to improve the security posture of all Bitnami users by promoting best practices for software supply chain integrity and up-to-date deployments. For more details, visit the Bitnami Secure Images announcement.

Why use Bitnami Secure Images?

• Bitnami Secure Images and Helm charts are built to make open source more secure and enterprise ready.
• Triage security vulnerabilities faster, with transparency into CVE risks using industry standard Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange (VEX), KEV, and EPSS scores.
• Our hardened images use a minimal OS (Photon Linux), which reduces the attack surface while maintaining extensibility through the use of an industry standard package format.
• Stay more secure and compliant with continuously built images updated within hours of upstream patches.
• Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
• Hardened images come with attestation signatures (Notation), SBOMs, virus scan reports and other metadata produced in an SLSA-3 compliant software factory.

Only a subset of BSI applications are available for free. Looking to access the entire catalog of applications as well as enterprise support? Try the commercial edition of Bitnami Secure Images today.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami Neo4j Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/neo4j:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/neo4j:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .

Persisting your application

If you remove the container all your data and configurations will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a volume at the /bitnami path. The above examples define a docker volume namely neo4j_data. The Neo4j application state will persist as long as this volume is not removed.

To avoid inadvertent removal of this volume you can mount host directories as data volumes. Alternatively you can make use of volume plugins to host the volume data.

docker run -v /path/to/neo4j-persistence:/bitnami bitnami/neo4j:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

neo4j:
  ...
  volumes:
    - /path/to/neo4j-persistence:/bitnami
  ...

NOTE: As this is a non-root container, the mounted files and directories must have the proper permissions for the UID 1001.

Connecting to other containers

Using Docker container networking, a different server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers and vice-versa.

Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.

Using the Command Line

Step 1: Create a network

docker network create neo4j-network --driver bridge

Step 2: Launch the Neo4j container within your network

Use the --network <NETWORK> argument to the docker run command to attach the container to the neo4j-network network.

docker run --name neo4j-node1 --network neo4j-network bitnami/neo4j:latest

Step 3: Run another containers

We can launch another containers using the same flag (--network NETWORK) in the docker run command. If you also set a name to your container, you will be able to use it as hostname in your network.

Using a Docker Compose file

When not specified, Docker Compose automatically sets up a new network and attaches all deployed services to that network. However, we will explicitly define a new bridge network named neo4j-network.

version: '2'

networks:
  neo4j-network:
    driver: bridge

services:
  neo4j:
    image: bitnami/neo4j:latest
    networks:
      - neo4j-network
    ports:
      - 7474:7474
      - 7473:7473
      - 7687:7687

Then, launch the containers using:

docker-compose up -d

Configuration

Environment variables

Customizable environment variables

Name	Description	Default Value
NEO4J_HOST	Hostname used to configure Neo4j advertised address. It can be either an IP or a domain. If left empty, it will be resolved to the machine IP	nil
NEO4J_BIND_ADDRESS	Neo4j bind address	0.0.0.0
NEO4J_ALLOW_UPGRADE	Allow automatic schema upgrades	true
NEO4J_PASSWORD	Neo4j password.	bitnami1
NEO4J_APOC_IMPORT_FILE_ENABLED	Allow importing files using the apoc library	true
NEO4J_APOC_IMPORT_FILE_USE_NEO4J_CONFIG	Use neo4j configuration with the apoc library	false
NEO4J_BOLT_PORT_NUMBER	Port used for the bolt protocol.	7687
NEO4J_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER	Port used for the http protocol.	7474
NEO4J_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER	Port used for the https protocol.	7473
NEO4J_BOLT_ADVERTISED_PORT_NUMBER	Advertised port for the bolt protocol.	$NEO4J_BOLT_PORT_NUMBER
NEO4J_HTTP_ADVERTISED_PORT_NUMBER	Advertised port for the http protocol.	$NEO4J_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER
NEO4J_HTTPS_ADVERTISED_PORT_NUMBER	Advertised port for the https protocol.	$NEO4J_HTTPS_PORT_NUMBER
NEO4J_HTTPS_ENABLED	Enables the HTTPS connector.	false
NEO4J_BOLT_TLS_LEVEL	The encryption level to be used to secure communications with Bolt connector. Allowed values: REQUIRED, OPTIONAL, DISABLED	DISABLED

Read-only environment variables

Name	Description	Value
NEO4J_BASE_DIR	Neo4j installation directory.	${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/neo4j
NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR	Neo4j volume directory.	/bitnami/neo4j
NEO4J_DATA_DIR	Neo4j volume directory.	$NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR/data
NEO4J_RUN_DIR	Neo4j temp directory.	${NEO4J_BASE_DIR}/run
NEO4J_LOGS_DIR	Neo4j logs directory.	${NEO4J_BASE_DIR}/logs
NEO4J_LOG_FILE	Neo4j log file.	${NEO4J_LOGS_DIR}/neo4j.log
NEO4J_PID_FILE	Neo4j PID file.	${NEO4J_RUN_DIR}/neo4j.pid
NEO4J_CONF_DIR	Configuration dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_BASE_DIR}/conf
NEO4J_DEFAULT_CONF_DIR	Neo4j default configuration directory.	${NEO4J_BASE_DIR}/conf.default
NEO4J_PLUGINS_DIR	Plugins dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_BASE_DIR}/plugins
NEO4J_METRICS_DIR	Metrics dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR}/metrics
NEO4J_CERTIFICATES_DIR	Certificates dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR}/certificates
NEO4J_IMPORT_DIR	Import dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR}/import
NEO4J_MOUNTED_CONF_DIR	Mounted Configuration dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR}/conf/
NEO4J_MOUNTED_PLUGINS_DIR	Mounted Plugins dir for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR}/plugins/
NEO4J_INITSCRIPTS_DIR	Path to neo4j init scripts directory	/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d
NEO4J_CONF_FILE	Configuration file for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_CONF_DIR}/neo4j.conf
NEO4J_APOC_CONF_FILE	Configuration file for Neo4j.	${NEO4J_CONF_DIR}/apoc.conf
NEO4J_VOLUME_DIR	Neo4j directory for mounted configuration files.	${BITNAMI_VOLUME_DIR}/neo4j
NEO4J_DATA_TO_PERSIST	Neo4j data to persist.	data
NEO4J_DAEMON_USER	Neo4j system user.	neo4j
NEO4J_DAEMON_GROUP	Neo4j system group.	neo4j
JAVA_HOME	Java installation folder.	${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/java

When you start the neo4j image, you can adjust the configuration of the instance by passing one or more environment variables either on the docker-compose file or on the docker run command line.

Specifying Environment Variables using Docker Compose

Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

neo4j:
  ...
  environment:
    - NEO4J_BOLT_PORT_NUMBER=7777
  ...

Specifying Environment Variables on the Docker command line

docker run -d -e NEO4J_BOLT_PORT_NUMBER=7777 --name neo4j bitnami/neo4j:latest

Using your Neo4j configuration files

In order to load your own configuration files, you will have to make them available to the container. You can do it mounting a volume in /bitnami/neo4j/conf.

Using Docker Compose

Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

neo4j:
  ...
  volumes:
    - /local/path/to/your/confDir:/bitnami/neo4j/conf
  ...

Adding extra Neo4j plugins

In order to add extra plugins, you will have to make them available to the container. You can do it mounting a volume in /bitnami/neo4j/plugins.

Using Docker Compose to add plugins

Modify the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

neo4j:
  ...
  volumes:
    - /local/path/to/your/plugins:/bitnami/neo4j/plugins
  ...

FIPS configuration in Bitnami Secure Images

The Bitnami Neo4j Docker image from the Bitnami Secure Images catalog includes extra features and settings to configure the container with FIPS capabilities. You can configure the next environment variables:

• OPENSSL_FIPS: whether OpenSSL runs in FIPS mode or not. yes (default), no.

Logging

The Bitnami neo4j Docker image sends the container logs to the stdout. To view the logs:

docker logs neo4j

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose logs neo4j

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of neo4j, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/neo4j:latest

or if you're using Docker Compose, update the value of the image property to bitnami/neo4j:latest.

Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

docker stop neo4j

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose stop neo4j

Next, take a snapshot of the persistent volume /path/to/neo4j-persistence using:

rsync -a /path/to/neo4j-persistence /path/to/neo4j-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)

You can use this snapshot to restore the database state should the upgrade fail.

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

docker rm -v neo4j

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose rm -v neo4j

Step 4: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image, restoring your backup if necessary.

docker run --name neo4j bitnami/neo4j:latest

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose up neo4j

Notable Changes

4.3.0-debian-10-r17

• Decrease the size of the container. The configuration logic is now based on Bash scripts in the rootfs/ folder. In addition to this, the container now has the latest stable version of the apoc library enabled by default.

• Now the configuration file is not persisted, so it is recommended to remove the persisted file in /bitnami/neo4j/conf/ to avoid potential upgrade issues.

3.4.3-r13

• The Neo4j container has been migrated to a non-root user approach. Previously the container ran as the root user and the Neo4j daemon was started as the neo4j user. From now on, both the container and the Neo4j daemon run as user 1001. As a consequence, the data directory must be writable by that user. You can revert this behavior by changing USER 1001 to USER root in the Dockerfile.

Using docker-compose.yaml

Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes.

If you detect any issue in the docker-compose.yaml file, feel free to report it or contribute with a fix by following our Contributing Guidelines.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.

License

Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.