Installation Tutorial for Windows

QuantRocket runs on Docker, so installing QuantRocket is a two-part process:

  • install Docker
  • install QuantRocket

Install Docker Desktop

Visit Docker's website and follow the instructions to download and install Docker Desktop on your computer.

During the installation, follow the Docker prompts to enable the WSL 2 backend. You may also be prompted to install the WSL 2 Linux kernel from Microsoft. See the Docker instructions for more detail.

After the installation, start Docker Desktop if it isn't already started (Start > Docker).

To verify the installation, open PowerShell (click Start and type "powershell") and run:

$ docker run hello-world

If you run into any problems during installation, please refer to Docker's installation guide for Windows. QuantRocket simply requires a standard installation of Docker Desktop for Windows.

Do not select any options in Docker Desktop to use Windows containers. Docker Desktop for Windows can run Windows containers or Linux containers but not both at the same time. QuantRocket uses Linux containers.

Install QuantRocket

To install QuantRocket, download a Docker Compose file which tells Docker how to create the QuantRocket stack. A Compose file is a YAML file that defines a multi-container Docker application.

Open PowerShell on Windows (click Start and type "powershell").

Create a folder for QuantRocket under your home directory:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir quantrocket
$ cd quantrocket

Copy and paste the following command to download the latest Compose file and save to your computer:

$ curl 'https://www.quantrocket.com/composefiles/latest/local/docker-compose.yml' -o docker-compose.yml

(You can also download the Compose file from the downloads page.)

Now, use docker-compose to deploy QuantRocket:

$ cd ~/quantrocket
$ docker-compose -p quantrocket up -d

Docker Compose will read your docker-compose.yml, pull the images down from Docker Hub, and create and run containers from the images. This process takes 5-15 minutes. You will see output like this:

Output
Creating network "quantrocket_default" with the default driver
Creating volume "quantrocket_codeload" with default driver
Creating volume "quantrocket_db" with default driver
Creating volume "quantrocket_flightlog" with default driver
Creating volume "quantrocket_settings" with default driver
Pulling codeload (quantrocket/codeload:2.5.0)...
2.5.0: Pulling from quantrocket/codeload
852e50cd189d: Pull complete
a6236801494d: Downloading [======================================>            ]  62.63MB/80.38MB
679c171d6942: Download complete
8fe74afaa3e3: Download complete
d9ada034b8a6: Downloading [=============>                                     ]   4.94MB/18.95MB

You can list all the containers that are running:

$ docker ps
Output
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                         COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS             PORTS                                            NAMES
d26da467ac03   bc77b14f9c3d                  "uwsgi-quantrocket -…"   About an hour ago   Up About an hour   80/tcp                                           quantrocket_master_1
b1569b403b38   f2226cb5f6c3                  "uwsgi-quantrocket -…"   About an hour ago   Up About an hour   80/tcp                                           quantrocket_fundamental_1
fcf1c7b0fb36   1ca2dbd9bfd2                  "uwsgi-quantrocket -…"   About an hour ago   Up About an hour   80/tcp                                           quantrocket_realtime_1
952089561d20   fcade8902208                  "uwsgi-quantrocket -…"   About an hour ago   Up About an hour   80/tcp                                           quantrocket_history_1
...

You can now access the Jupyter environment in your browser at:

http://localhost:1969

You may want to bookmark this URL.

In JupyterLab you'll see the JupyterLab dashboard. Click the Quickstart button to find an interactive tour and other resources to help you get started with QuantRocket:

JupyterLab home