open-webui-docs/docs/tutorials/integrations/web_search.md

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5	🌐 Web Search

:::warning This tutorial is a community contribution and is not supported by the OpenWebUI team. It serves only as a demonstration on how to customize OpenWebUI for your specific use case. Want to contribute? Check out the contributing tutorial. :::

🌐 Web Search

This guide provides instructions on how to set up web search capabilities in Open WebUI using various search engines.

SearXNG (Docker)

"SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled."

1. SearXNG Configuration

If you want to modify the default configuration, follow these steps:

Create a New Directory searxng-docker

Clone the searxng-docker repository. This folder will contain your SearXNG configuration files. Refer to the SearXNG documentation for configuration instructions.

git clone https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker.git

Configure SearXNG

Navigate to the searxng-docker repository:

cd searxng-docker

Create a new .env file:

touch .env

Add the following to the .env file:

# By default listen on https://localhost
# To change this:
# * uncomment SEARXNG_HOSTNAME, and replace <host> by the SearXNG hostname
# * uncomment LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL, and replace <email> by your email (require to create a Let's Encrypt certificate)


SEARXNG_HOSTNAME=example.locale 
# LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=<email>

3. Remove the localhost restriction and define a less used port by modifying the docker-compose.yaml file:

sed -i "s/127.0.0.1:8080/1337/" docker-compose.yaml

4. Allow the container to create new config files:

sudo chmod a+rwx searxng-docker/

5. Create a non-restrictive searxng-docker/limiter.toml config file:

searxng-docker/limiter.toml

cat > searxng-docker/limiter.toml << EOF
# This configuration file updates the default configuration file See https://github.com/searxng/searxng/blob/master/searx/botdetection/limiter.toml

[botdetection.ip_limit]
# activate link_token method in the ip_limit method
link_token = false

[botdetection.ip_lists]
block_ip = []
pass_ip = []
EOF

6. Delete the default searxng-docker/settings.yml file, it will be regenerated on first launch:

rm searxng-docker/settings.yml

7. Bring up the container momentarily to generate a fresh settings.yml file:

docker compose up searxng-docker -d ; sleep 10 ; docker compose down searxng-docker

8. Add HTML and JSON formats to the searxng-docker/settings.yml file:

sed -i 's/formats: \[\"html\"\/]/formats: [\"html\", \"json\"]/' searxng-docker/settings.yml

Configuration Files

searxng/settings.yml (Extract)

The default settings.yml file contains many engine settings. Below is an extract of what the default settings.yml file might look like:

searxng-docker/settings.yml

# see https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings.html#settings-use-default-settings
use_default_settings: true

server:
  # base_url is defined in the SEARXNG_BASE_URL environment variable, see .env and docker-compose.yml
  secret_key: "xxxxx"  # change this!
  limiter: false  # can be disabled for a private instance
  image_proxy: true
  port: 8080
  bind_address: "0.0.0.0"

ui:
  static_use_hash: true

search:
  safe_search: 0
  autocomplete: ""
  default_lang: ""
  formats:
    - html
    - json # json is required
  # remove format to deny access, use lower case.
  # formats: [html, csv, json, rss]
redis:
  # URL to connect redis database. Is overwritten by ${SEARXNG_REDIS_URL}.
  # https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings_redis.html#settings-redis
  url: redis://redis:6379/2

The port in the settings.yml file for SearXNG should match that of the port number in your docker-compose.yml file for SearXNG. So if you plan to use port 1337 for example, you'd set both to 1337. If you want to use port 8080, keep both on 8080. Feel free to change the bind_address from 0.0.0.0 to 127.0.0.1 instead. Leaving it on 0.0.0.0 means that SearXNG can listen across all interfaces, while 127.0.0.1 just means that its listening on localhost.

8. Your searxng-docker/uwsgi.ini file for SearXNG should look like:

searxng-docker/uwsgi.ini

[uwsgi]
# Who will run the code
uid = searxng
gid = searxng

# Number of workers (usually CPU count)
# default value: %k (= number of CPU core, see Dockerfile)
workers = %k

# Number of threads per worker
# default value: 4 (see Dockerfile)
threads = 4

# The right granted on the created socket
chmod-socket = 666

# Plugin to use and interpreter config
single-interpreter = true
master = true
plugin = python3
lazy-apps = true
enable-threads = 4

# Module to import
module = searx.webapp

# Virtualenv and python path
pythonpath = /usr/local/searxng/
chdir = /usr/local/searxng/searx/

# automatically set processes name to something meaningful
auto-procname = true

# Disable request logging for privacy
disable-logging = true
log-5xx = true

# Set the max size of a request (request-body excluded)
buffer-size = 8192

# No keep alive
# See https://github.com/searx/searx-docker/issues/24
add-header = Connection: close

# uwsgi serves the static files
static-map = /static=/usr/local/searxng/searx/static
# expires set to one day
static-expires = /* 86400
static-gzip-all = True
offload-threads = 4

Now, copy the modified searxng-docker folder to the same directory as your compose files.

Alternatively, if you don't want to modify the default configuration, you can simply create an empty searxng-docker folder and follow the rest of the setup instructions.

2. Docker Compose Setup

Add the following to your docker-compose.yaml file:

services:
  open-webui:
    environment:
      ENABLE_RAG_WEB_SEARCH: True
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_ENGINE: "searxng"
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_RESULT_COUNT: 3
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS: 10
      SEARXNG_QUERY_URL: "http://searxng:1337/search?q=<query>"

  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    container_name: searxng
    env_file:
      - stack.env
    volumes:
      - ./searxng:/etc/searxng:rw
    ports:
      - "1337:8080"
    restart: unless-stopped
    cap_drop:
      - ALL
    cap_add:
      - CHOWN
      - SETGID
      - SETUID
      - DAC_OVERRIDE
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-size: "1m"
        max-file: "1"

Launch your updated stack with:

docker compose up -d

Alternatively, you can run SearXNG directly using docker run:

docker run --name searxng --env-file stack.env -v ./searxng:/etc/searxng:rw -p 1337:8080 --restart unless-stopped --cap-drop ALL --cap-add CHOWN --cap-add SETGID --cap-add SETUID --cap-add DAC_OVERRIDE --log-driver json-file --log-opt max-size=1m,max-file=1 searxng/searxng:latest

Confirm connectivity from Open-WebUI container instance:

docker exec -it open-webui curl http://host.docker.internal:1337/search?q=this+is+a+test+query&format=json

3. GUI Configuration

1. Navigate to: Admin Panel -> Settings -> Web Search
2. Toggle Enable Web Search
3. Set Web Search Engine from dropdown menu to searxng
4. Set Searxng Query URL to examples given: https://<search.domain.com>/search?q=<query> or http://<searxng.local>/search?q=<query>. Do note the /search?q=<query> part is mandatory.
5. Adjust the Search Result Count and Concurrent Requests values accordingly
6. Save changes

4. Using Web Search in a Chat

To access Web Search, Click on the + next to the message input field.

Here you can toggle Web Search On/Off.

Note

You will have to explicitly toggle this On/Off in a chat.

This is enabled on a per session basis eg. reloading the page, changing to another chat will toggle off.

Google PSE API

Setup

1. Go to Google Developers, use Programmable Search Engine, and log on or create account.
2. Go to control panel and click Add button
3. Enter a search engine name, set the other properties to suit your needs, verify you're not a robot and click Create button.
4. Generate API key and get the Search engine ID. (Available after the engine is created)
5. With API key and Search engine ID, open Open WebUI Admin panel and click Settings tab, and then click Web Search
6. Enable Web search and Set Web Search Engine to google_pse
7. Fill Google PSE API Key with the API key and Google PSE Engine Id (# 4)
8. Click Save

Note

You have to enable Web search in the prompt field, using plus (+) button. Search the web ;-)

Brave API

Docker Compose Setup

Add the following to a file named docker-compose.yaml:

services:
  open-webui:
    environment:
      ENABLE_RAG_WEB_SEARCH: True
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_ENGINE: "brave"
      BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY: "YOUR_API_KEY"
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_RESULT_COUNT: 3
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS: 10

Mojeek Search API

Setup

1. Please visit Mojeek Search API page to obtain an API key
2. With API key, open Open WebUI Admin panel and click Settings tab, and then click Web Search
3. Enable Web search and Set Web Search Engine to mojeek
4. Fill Mojeek Search API Key with the API key
5. Click Save

Docker Compose Setup

Add the following to a file named docker-compose.yaml:

services:
  open-webui:
    environment:
      ENABLE_RAG_WEB_SEARCH: True
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_ENGINE: "mojeek"
      BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY: "YOUR_MOJEEK_API_KEY"
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_RESULT_COUNT: 3
      RAG_WEB_SEARCH_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS: 10

SearchApi API

SearchApi is a collection of real-time SERP APIs. Any existing or upcoming SERP engine that returns organic_results is supported. The default web search engine is google, but it can be changed to bing, baidu, google_news, bing_news, google_scholar, google_patents, and others.

Setup

1. Go to SearchApi, and log on or create a new account.
2. Go to Dashboard and copy the API key.
3. With API key, open Open WebUI Admin panel and click Settings tab, and then click Web Search.
4. Enable Web search and set Web Search Engine to searchapi.
5. Fill SearchApi API Key with the API key that you copied in step 2 from SearchApi dashboard.
6. [Optional] Enter the SearchApi engine name you want to query. Example, google, bing, baidu, google_news, bing_news, google_videos, google_scholar and google_patents. By default, it is set to google.
7. Click Save.

Note

You have to enable Web search in the prompt field, using plus (+) button to search the web using SearchApi engines.

Kagi API

Coming Soon

Setup

Serpstack API

Coming Soon

Setup

Serper API

Coming Soon

Setup

Serply API

Coming Soon

Setup

DuckDuckGo API

Setup

No setup required! DuckDuckGo works out of the box in Open WebUI. Note that there is a possibility of your searches being rate limited.

Tavily API

Coming Soon

Setup

Jina API

Coming Soon

Setup

Bing API

Coming Soon

Setup