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Frank e0b1466f74 docs(searxng): the upstream engine count is an order of magnitude, not a fact

The intro carried "388 engine entries" from a 2026-10-19 probe; upstream is at 385 today. The
number moves every week, which makes a precise one a liability in a runbook. The page now states
the size class, names `/config` as the only authority for what an instance loads, and keeps the
fleet's live 262 with today's date.

Refs #64

2026-10-21 02:26:24 -07:00

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SearXNG Tuning

SearXNG is a metasearch engine: it aggregates upstream search services into one result set. Upstream ships several hundred engine entries (385 in settings.yml at master, read 2026-10-21 — the count drifts every week, so treat it as an order of magnitude, not a fact); what your instance actually loads is what /config reports, and the fleet's loads 262 (re-read 2026-10-21). Configuration lives in settings.yml. The recommended deployment is Docker Compose (or Podman Quadlet) with a Valkey container.

This page lists the settings that matter for speed, privacy, and useful results.

Fleet instance: the harness web/searxng provider calls 192.168.0.143:8081 on dankclaw — HTML and JSON on that one port (/search?q=…&format=json, re-probed 2026-10-21). Port 8082 is not a second SearXNG API: it publishes container port 8085, which is Marreta's nginx (moved off 8080 because SearXNG owns it in that namespace). Both ports show up against four container names because searxng, searxng-valkey, gluetun and the marreta pair share one network namespace. The pi-era Pi Web Access called the same host.

Live instance (probed 2026-10-21)

User Quadlet stack on dankclaw: searxng.container (ghcr.io/searxng/searxng:latest) + searxng-valkey.container (docker.io/valkey/valkey:9-alpine) + gluetun.container (VPN egress; the other containers join its network namespace, hence the shared port list) + marreta/marreta_browser. limiter.toml: enabled, pass_searxng_org: true.

Policy drift flag: this page's tuned engine policy (google and bing disabled; DuckDuckGo/Wikipedia/Google News enabled — verified via /config on 2026-08-16) is NOT live. /config re-read 2026-10-21: 262 engines, zero disabled, google and bing included — unchanged since 2026-10-19. Either the override was lost in the 2026-10 stack reinstatement or the policy was deliberately dropped. Confirm with Frank before re-applying.

Plan the Deployment

graph LR
    A[Browser or Agent] --> B[SearXNG container]
    B --> C[Valkey cache + limiter]
    B --> D[Engine request pool]
    D --> E[Google News]
    D --> F[DuckDuckGo]
    D --> G[Wikipedia]

Deploy with the official Docker Compose file. It ships a searxng-valkey container (valkey/valkey:9-alpine). Valkey replaced Redis as the default cache. Mount your config at ./core-config/:/etc/searxng.

services:
  searxng:
    image: docker.io/searxng/searxng:latest
    ports:
      - "8081:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./core-config/:/etc/searxng/:Z
    depends_on:
      - searxng-valkey

  searxng-valkey:
    image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:9-alpine
    restart: always

Core Settings

use_default_settings: true
server:
  secret_key: "change-this"   # or $SEARXNG_SECRET
  base_url: "http://192.168.0.143:8081/"   # or $SEARXNG_BASE_URL
  limiter: true
  method: "POST"

search:
  default_lang: "en"
  default_locale: "en-US"
  safe_search: 0
  formats:
    - html
    - json

Change secret_key. Set base_url to the public address. Use POST for privacy. Enable the json format for the agent.

Rate Limiting

Enable the limiter and point it at Valkey. Without a limiter, an upstream engine can block SearXNG's IP.

server:
  limiter: true

valkey:
  url: valkey://searxng-valkey:6379/0

The limiter uses a sliding window per IP:

Window	HTML limit	JSON/API limit
20 seconds	15	4 per 3600 s
600 seconds	150	4 per 3600 s

Suspicious IPs get a much lower budget (2 in 20 s, 10 in 600 s). The agent that hits the JSON endpoint repeatedly can trip the 4-per-hour API limit. Back off or make the agent part of a trusted group.

Outgoing Pool

outgoing:
  request_timeout: 3.0
  max_request_timeout: 10.0
  pool_connections: 100
  pool_maxsize: 20
  enable_http2: true
  keepalive_expiry: 5.0
  retries: 3

A short request_timeout keeps results snappy. enable_http2 multiplexes connections. More retries makes results more reliable but slower.

Engine Selection

Default engine state (current SearXNG):

Engine	Default state	Note
DuckDuckGo	Enabled	Reliable general search
Wikipedia	Enabled	Encyclopedia lookups
Google News	Enabled	News results
Google (main)	Inactive	Cloudflare CAPTCHA often blocks it
Bing	Disabled	Blocked upstream

Keep only the engines you need. Fewer engines means faster responses.

use_default_settings:
  engines:
    keep_only:
      - duckduckgo
      - wikipedia
      - google news

Make an engine private to one agent with a token:

engines:
  - name: arch wiki
    engine: archlinux
    tokens: ['my-secret-token']

Useful Plugins

plugins:
  searx.plugins.unit_converter.SXNGPlugin:
    active: true
  searx.plugins.calculator.SXNGPlugin:
    active: true
  searx.plugins.self_info.SXNGPlugin:
    active: true

The hostnames plugin filters or rewrites results. It needs a separate hostnames: block:

hostnames:
  remove:
    - '(.*\.)?facebook.com$'
  high_priority:
    - '(.*\.)?wikipedia.org$'

JSON API for the Agent

The agent uses the JSON format. Confirm that it returns structured data:

curl 'http://192.168.0.143:8081/search?q=test&format=json'

The response contains results, query, number_of_results, and suggestions. The /config endpoint lists engine availability.

Verify the Instance

Open the HTML interface and run a test query.
Confirm that the json format returns data.
Confirm that the limiter page appears on rapid repeats.

Citations

SearXNG documentation: https://docs.searxng.org
SearXNG outgoing settings: https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings_outgoing.html
SearXNG engine settings: https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings_engines.html
SearXNG Valkey settings: https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings_valkey.html
SearXNG limiter: https://docs.searxng.org/admin/searx.limiter.html
SearXNG plugins: https://docs.searxng.org/admin/settings/settings_plugins.html
Docker Compose install: https://docs.searxng.org/admin/installation-docker.html

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