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Installing Thumbor

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Updated at January 26, 2026

Thumbor is an open-source project for on-demand image processing. Thumbor runs as an HTTP service and performs transformations, such as image cropping and resizing, applying filters and many others.

Thumbor features:

  • Support for all popular image formats.
  • Smart cropping and resizing.
  • Accelerated image processing using caching.
  • Supporting various storage types (local disks, Yandex Object Storage, and others).
  • Face and object recognition (glasses, facial features) based on computer vision technology.
  • Integration with various programming languages.

Getting started

  1. Create a bucket with restricted access in Object Storage.

  2. Upload images to the bucket.

  3. Create a service account for Thumbor to run.

  4. Create a static key and save it to a file named sa-key.json:

    yc iam access-key create \
  --service-account-name <service_account_name_for_Thumbor> \
  --format json > sa-key.json

  5. Set the bucket object read access permissions for the service account.

  6. Make sure the security groups for the Managed Service for Kubernetes cluster and its node groups are configured correctly. If a rule is missing, add it.

    Warning

    The configuration of security groups determines performance and availability of the cluster and the services and applications running in it.

Installation from Yandex Cloud Marketplace

  1. Navigate to the folder dashboard and select Managed Service for Kubernetes.

  2. Click the name of the Kubernetes cluster you need and select the  Marketplace tab.

  3. Under Application available for installation, select Thumbor and click Go to install.

  4. Configure the application:

    • Namespace: Create a new namespace, e.g., thumbor-space. If you leave the default namespace, Thumbor may work incorrectly.
    • Application name: Specify the application name.
    • Bucket name: Specify the name of the bucket you created previously.
    • Object Storage static access key: Paste the contents of the sa-key.json file.
    • Security key: Specify the security key for URL signing. This is an optional setting.
    • Allow unsigned URLs (unsafe): Select this option if you did not specify a security key at the previous step.
    • Subfolder in the bucket: Specify the name of the bucket folder (without the ending / character) where images are located.

  5. Click Install.

    For Thumbor to run, a Kubernetes service of the LoadBalancer type and the appropriate Yandex Network Load Balancer load balancer will be created automatically.

  6. Wait for the application to change its status to Deployed.

Installation using a Helm chart

  1. Install Helm v3.8.0 or higher.

  2. Install kubect and configure it to work with the new cluster.

  3. To install a Helm chart with Thumbor, run the following command, specifying the parameters of the resources you created earlier:

    helm pull oci://cr.yandex/yc-marketplace/yandex-cloud/thumbor/thumbor/chart/thumbor \
  --version 0.1.2-10 \
  --untar && \
helm install \
  --namespace <namespace_for_Thumbor> \
  --create-namespace \
  --set bucket_name='<bucket_name>' \
  --set allow_unsafe_url='true' \
  --set root_path='<bucket_subfolder_name>' \
  --set-file saAccessKeyFile='sa-key.json' \
 thumbor ./thumbor

    If you set namespace to the default namespace, Thumbor may work incorrectly. We recommend specifying a value different from all the existing namespaces, e.g., thumbor-space.

    Note

    If you are using a Helm version below 3.8.0, add the export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1 && \ string at the beginning of the command to enable Open Container Initiative (OCI) support in the Helm client.

    helm pull oci://cr.yandex/yc-marketplace/yandex-cloud/thumbor/thumbor/chart/thumbor \
  --version 0.1.2-10 \
  --untar && \
helm install \
  --namespace <namespace_for_Thumbor> \
  --create-namespace \
  --set bucket_name='<bucket_name>' \
  --set allow_unsafe_url='false' \
  --set security_key='<security_key_for_URL_signing>' \
  --set root_path='<bucket_subfolder_name>' \
  --set-file saAccessKeyFile='sa-key.json' \
 thumbor ./thumbor/

    If you set namespace to the default namespace, Thumbor may work incorrectly. We recommend specifying a value different from all the existing namespaces, e.g., thumbor-space.

    Note

    If you are using a Helm version below 3.8.0, add the export HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI=1 && \ string at the beginning of the command to enable Open Container Initiative (OCI) support in the Helm client.

    For Thumbor to run, a Kubernetes service of the LoadBalancer type and the appropriate Yandex Network Load Balancer load balancer will be created automatically.

Accessing the application

  1. Navigate to the folder dashboard and select Network Load Balancer.
  2. Get the IP address of the load balancer with the following description: cluster <your_cluster_name>, service <namespace>/thumbor.
  3. In the browser address bar, open http://<load_balancer_IP_address>/unsafe/<image_name_in_bucket>.

  1. Run the command below to get the load balancer IP address:

    kubectl get svc \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --output jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}' thumbor

  2. In the browser address bar, open http://<load_balancer_IP_address>/unsafe/<image_name_in_bucket>.

Note

If you cannot access the resource at the specified URL, make sure the security groups for the Managed Service for Kubernetes cluster and its node groups are configured correctly. If a rule is missing, add it.

Learn more about working with images in this Thumbor guide.

What's next

Learn how to use Thumbor for editing images on your website. The Thumbor use case described in our guide involves configuring Yandex Cloud CDN. The service helps with faster loading of website images.

See also

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Installing Prometheus Operator
Next
Installing Velero