WhatsApp Business Platform > On-Premises API > Get Started > Installation

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.

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

• Login & Authenticate your setup using Postman or our command line guide.