On-Premises API

We are sunsetting On-Premises API. Refer to our On-Premises API Sunset document for details, and to learn how to migrate to our next-generation Cloud API.

Developer Setup: Single Instance

This document shows you how to set up a single instance of the WhatsApp Business API client on a developer machine for testing purposes. For a production setup, follow the relevant instructions listed in Production Setups.

To initially set up a single instance, check our list of requirements, and follow these steps:

  1. Create a biz directory for the setup scripts
  2. Get the WhatsApp Business API Client configuration files
  3. Set the WA_API_VERSION environment variable
  4. Start the WhatsApp Business API Client
  5. Verify containers are running
  6. Perform a health check
  7. Register the WhatsApp Business API Client

Once you have completely set up your instance, you can choose to upgrade it. To uninstall the client, follow these steps.

Before You Start

Before you start, you will need to complete the following:

Install Docker Desktop

To install Docker Desktop on your developer machine:

  1. Navigate to the Docker website.
  2. If you do not have an existing Docker account, create one by clicking on Sign Up.
  3. After you have created your account, you will be directed to the Docker download page.
  4. Download Docker Desktop based on your OS (This should be automatically detected and presented as the default option).

The remaining steps are based on macOS and should be very similar for Linux or Windows 10.

To install Docker using macOS:

  1. Install the package (docker.dmg for macOS).
  2. After extraction, Finder will pop-up and you will be presented with a dialog that instructs you to drag the Docker icon to Applications. Drag Docker icon to the Application folder in Finder.
  3. In Applications launch Docker and then click the Open button.
  4. You may be prompted to enter your password Docker needs priviledged/administrator access.
  5. Docker will present you with a tutorial, you can click Start to launch a tutorial or you can click Skip Tutorial to start using Docker.

Verify Docker Compose is installed

Docker Compose is a plugin that is bundled with Docker Desktop and should have installed automatically. For more information about using or Docker Compose, see Overview of Docker Compose. If for some reason Docker Compose was not installed, you can install it by following the instructions located at Install Docker Compose.

Other prerequisites

Make sure you set up a local test account in a development environment. This is for fast development and to test new releases.

Initial Setup of the WhatsApp Business API Client

Perform the following steps to install a single instance of the WhatsApp Business API client on a developer system.

Step 1: Create ~/biz

Create a ~/biz directory for the WhatsApp Business API client.

Step 2: Get Config Files

Clone the WhatsApp Business API Client docker-compose.yml and db.env configuration files from the WhatsApp GitHub repository for either a MySQL database setup or a Postgres database setup to your ~/biz directory.

Step 3: Set the Version

The WA_API_VERSION environmental variable should be set to the current version.

~/biz $ export WA_API_VERSION=CURRENT-WA-API-VERSION

To find the current version of the API that you installed, open docker-compose.yml and search for "WA_API_VERSION=". The version number should be noted by a developer in the wacore label:

    wacore:
    image: docker.whatsapp.biz/coreapp:v${WA_API_VERSION:?Run docker-compose with env var WA_API_VERSION (ex. WA_API_VERSION=2.31.4 docker-compose <command> <options>)}

Step 4: Start the Client

To start the WhatsApp Business API client, run:

~/biz $ docker-compose up -d

The resulting output should look like the following:

Creating volume "biz_whatsappMedia" with local driver
Creating volume "biz_mysqlData" with local driver
Creating biz_db_1 ... done
Creating biz_wacore_1 ... done
Creating biz_waweb_1  ... done

Verify Containers Are Running

You can check that all containers have an UP state by running:

~/biz $ docker-compose ps

By default, the Webapp container will be running on port 9090 (https://localhost:9090) and the database container will be running on port 33060 (https://localhost:33060).

The resulting output should look like the following:

~/biz $ docker-compose ps
     Name                    Command               State                   Ports
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
biz_db_1       docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld      Up      0.0.0.0:33060->3306/tcp, 33060/tcp
biz_wacore_1   /opt/whatsapp/bin/wait_on_ ...   Up      6250/tcp, 6251/tcp, 6252/tcp, 6253/tcp
biz_waweb_1    /opt/whatsapp/bin/wait_on_ ...   Up      0.0.0.0:9090->443/tcp

Status Check

Send a GET request to /v1/health endpoint to check the status of your client.

On success, you will see the following:

{
    "health": {
        "gateway_status": "unregistered"
    }
}

Register Your Client

To register your WhatsApp Business API client, send a POST request to the /v1/account endpoint.

Upon registration gateway_status will be set connected. Your Coreapp container is able to connect to the WhatsApp server for checking contacts and sending messages.

Next Steps

Upgrading the WhatsApp Business API Client

There will be downtime during the upgrade process.

Backing up your current application settings before upgrading is highly recommended to ensure you can get back up and running quickly. Please follow the Backup and Restore documentation.

It is always recommended performing upgrades during your least busiest hours.

Step 1: Change the WA_API_VERSION Environment Variable to the New Version

The WA_API_VERSION environmental variable should be updated to the new version number using:

export WA_API_VERSION=new-whatsapp-version

If you are upgrading to version 2.33.4, the example command would be:

~/biz $ export WA_API_VERSION=2.33.4

Step 2: Restart the Docker Containers

Restart the Docker containers by running:

docker-compose up -d

The resulting output should look like the following:

biz_db_1 is up-to-date
Recreating biz_wacore_1 ... done
Recreating biz_waweb_1  ... done

For MySQL Database Users Upgrading to v2.23.x and Above

You can now make use of a database upgrade service that will let you upgrade your database while your application is still running to avoid downtime.

Step 1: Download the configuration file

The dbupgrade-compose.yml file has fields indicating the container version.

Example:

services:
  dbupgrade:
    image: docker.whatsapp.biz/coreapp:v${WA_API_VERSION:-2.21.3}

Step 2: Start the container

To upgrade an installation, start the dbupgrade-service container with the WA_API_VERSION environment variable set to the latest version:

WA_API_VERSION=new-whatsapp-version docker-compose -f dbupgrade-compose.yml up -d

Note: If you are using an orchestration that restarts the container upon exit irrespective of the exit code, start the service with the EXIT_ON_SUCCESS environment variable set to FALSE in order to avoid exiting the container when the exit code is 0.

Step 3: Allow the upgrade to finish

If the database upgrade is successful, the container will exit with code 0. You can use the following Docker command to track the status:

docker wait your-database-upgrade-container-name

This will output the exit code of the dbupgrade-service container.

Step 4: Restart the Coreapp and Webapp containers

Restart the Coreapp and Webapp Docker containers with the WA_API_VERSION environment variable set to the latest version:

WA_API_VERSION=new-whatsapp-version docker-compose up -d

Uninstalling the WhatsApp Business API Client

It is highly recommended to backup your current application settings before uninstalling. Please follow the Backup and Restore documentation.

If you need to reset your development environment by removing all containers, run the following command from the directory containing the docker-compose.yml file:

WA_API_VERSION={VERSION_NUMBER} docker-compose down

The resulting output should look like the following:

Stopping biz_waweb_1  ... done
Stopping biz_wacore_1 ... done
Stopping biz_db_1     ... done
Removing biz_waweb_1  ... done
Removing biz_wacore_1 ... done
Removing biz_db_1     ... done

To get rid of all volumes defined in the docker-compose.yml file in addition to the containers, run the down command with the -v parameter:

WA_API_VERSION={VERSION_NUMBER} docker-compose down -v

Troubleshooting

We recommend using WADebug for more effective troubleshooting. WADebug is a command line tool to help find any potential issues with the WhatsApp Business API setup and to make requesting help from WhatsApp support more effective.

In cases where WADebug cannot be used or running the tool returns errors run the following command to collect logs from all containers:

docker-compose logs > debug_output.txt

To collect the logs of a specific service, append the service name (waweb or wacore) to the docker-compose logs command:

docker-compose logs waweb > debug_output.txt

You can find the logs in the debug_output.txt file in the current directory.

Learn More

This software uses code of FFmpeg licensed under the LGPLv2.1 and its source can be downloaded here.