docker_deployment_notes/initial ubuntu setup

Initial Installation

These notes are for people who are new to Linux, Docker, and Caddy starting from a base Ubuntu 20.04 installation on a remote VM or remote Server. This will assume you have root access and can access the shell or terminal via SSH.

You should have some basic linux knowledge such as being able to create folders, create files, edit files, and run scripts. Example basic commands you should understand are cd, ls, pwd, mkdir, nano somefilename.txt, ./runscript

Some very useful bash tips for newbies are:

• Use up or down arrows to cycle thru your last used commands.
• Type history and Enter to list all your last used commands.
• Type !1 to enter the first command on the history list. !777 would enter in the 777th command on the history list
• Use the tab button to complete commands. For example, lets say you have a file called ThisNameIsTooLong in your current folder and you want to edit it... You can type nano This and press TAB to auto-complete the filename.

If you are an experienced user and want to blaze thru steps 1 and 8. You can use my scripts just make sure you modify your username, hostname, public-key, and timezone. Scripts here: part-1-ubuntu-initial-setup.sh and part-2-docker-scripts

The references I used to write the rest of these notes are bulleted below:

• Initial Server Setup: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/initial-server-setup-with-ubuntu-20-04
• How to install Docker: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-docker-on-ubuntu-20-04
• How to install docker-compose: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-docker-compose-on-ubuntu-20-04
• How to install Caddy: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-docker-compose-on-ubuntu-20-04

Now on to the Main Installation Guide

1. Update Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

2. Create Username.

In this example the username is sammy. You can choose your own username, all my examples will be using sammy.

adduser sammy
usermod -aG sudo sammy

Logout or close the ssh connection. Then ssh back in as your new username instead of root.

3. Set Up Uncomplicated Firewall (Optional)

sudo apt install ufw
sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp comment "caddy"
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp comment "caddy"
sudo ufw enable

This is a basic firewall on ubuntu. If you install this remember to unblock the specific ports you need open for some of your applications. In the example above we allow our own SSH connection, and open TCP ports 80 & 443 in order for Caddy v2 to work.

4. Adding your SSH Key (Optional)

Optional because you can choose to keep logging in with passwords if you wish. However logging in via SSH keys is more secure.

cd /home/sammy
mkdir .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh
cd .ssh 
nano authorized_keys
chmod 644 authorized_keys
cd ..
chown -R sammy:sammy .ssh

If you'd like to learn how to create an SSH key do so here

5. Disable Root Login by Password and Disable Login by Password (You will need to login via SSH Key)

sudo sed --in-place 's/^PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/g' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sudo sed --in-place 's/#PasswordAuthentication yes/PasswordAuthentication no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sudo systemctl restart sshd

Using two sed commands above is the short way to disable root login. To disable it manually you can just do sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config find a line called PermitRootLogin modify it. Then find a line called PasswordAuthentication and modify it as well.

If you need to be a root user, first login as sammy, your username. Then use the command below to be a root user.

sudo su

To stop being a root user and go back to sammy just do

exit

6. Setup Passwordless Sudo

Replace sammy with your actual username.

echo "sammy ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers

You do this so you don't have to type your password everytime you add sudo in front of a command.

7. Install Docker

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal stable"
sudo apt update
apt-cache policy docker-ce
sudo apt install docker-ce
sudo systemctl status docker
sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}

Note: In the last line, replace ${USER} with your username, like sudo usermod -aG docker sammy.

Logout of sammy and SSH back in.

id -nG

This should return: sammy sudo docker

8. Install Docker-Compose

sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.27.4/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

docker-compose --version

9. Create a docker network called caddy_net

docker network create caddy_net

Installing and Using Caddy

Caddy is the easiest reverse proxy ever!

It allows you to host multiple applications based on the same or different hostname: such as nextcloud.yourwebsite.com, seafile.yourwebsite.com, rocketchat.yourwebsite.com, and yourwebsite.com.

Requirements

• Port 80 and 443 forwarded on the router/firewall to the docker host machine. If you're using a remote server, we already did this with ufw. But if you're running a local server, you will need to open ports 80/tcp and 443/tcp on your router as well and point them to your local server.

• A domain name like example.com you can buy one for cheap on namecheap.

  • After buying your domain you need to set custom DNS records.
  • Create type A records that point to the Public IP of your server. So if you made a chat.{$MY_DOMAIN} entry in Caddyfile create a "Type A" record for chat.yourdomain.com and point it to the Public IP of your server.

Minimum File Structure

/home/
└── ~/
    └── docker/
        └── caddy/
            ├── config/
            ├── data/
            ├── .env
            ├── Caddyfile
            └── docker-compose.yml

To achieve this a part of this folder structure do the following below.

cd ~
mkdir docker
cd docker
mkdir caddy
cd caddy

So now you're inside the caddy folder.

At minimum you will need a .env, Caddyfile and docker-compose.yml. the config/ and data/ folders are automatically generated by docker-compose later.

Creating .env

Do this with nano .env and add the following lines in the .env file. Do not use subdomain. Just use yourrootdomain.com, in this example I'm using example.com The purpose of the .env file is to substitute variables in your docker-compose.yml in the same directory. .env

MY_DOMAIN=example.com
DOCKER_MY_NETWORK=caddy_net

Ctrl+O to save file.

Creating docker-compose.yml

A small explanation about this can be found here docker-compose.yml

version: "3.7"
services:

  caddy:
    image: caddy
    container_name: caddy
    hostname: caddy
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    environment:
      - MY_DOMAIN
    volumes:
      - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:ro
      - ./data:/data
      - ./config:/config

networks:
  default:
    external:
      name: $DOCKER_MY_NETWORK

Create Caddyfile

This Caddyfile below is an example for a server with wordpress deployed in a docker container on the same caddy_net network.

Caddyfile

{$MY_DOMAIN} {
	reverse_proxy wordpress:80
}

www.{$MY_DOMAIN} {
	reverse_proxy wordpress:80
}

chat.{$MY_DOMAIN} {
	reverse_proxy rocketchat:3000
}

What does this all mean?

You will be editing the Caddyfile a lot! Everytime you make changes to the Caddyfile you should restart Caddy with

docker exec -w /etc/caddy caddy caddy reload

You will be using that command above very often.

In the example Caddyfile, the first two blocks are to handle yourwebsite.com and www.yourwebsite.com and point them to your wordpress container_name.

The third block handles chat.yourwebsite.com and points them to your rocketchat container_name.

I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't please refer to: https://github.com/DoTheEvo/selfhosted-apps-docker/tree/master/caddy_v2

For now your Caddyfile can be the same as the example above if you plan on deploying wordpress and rocket.chat.

Starting Caddy Make sure you're in /home/sammy/docker/caddy Then do

docker-compose up -d

to start caddy. To bring it down you can do docker-compose down.

Time to deploy Applications

Congrats you are now ready to deploy applications. The other applications will be deployed the same way you just deployed Caddy! I recommend you deploy wordpress first if you are new to this.

The general flow for adding new application like wordpress for example is:

1. Find an application specific guide
2. Make a new app specific folder in /home/sammy/docker/ with mkdir newapp
3. Navigate inside the new app specific folder with cd newapp
4. Create the mimimum files as mentioned in the app specific guides, but don't worry about creating folders inside the newapp folder as they are auto generated in docker-compose.yml
5. Use nano to add the app specific blocks to your Caddyfile in /home/sammy/docker/caddy/Caddyfile and save.
6. Reload caddy docker exec -w /etc/caddy caddy caddy reload
7. Change back to your app specific folder /home/sammy/docker/newapp
8. docker-compose up -d to start the new application
9. Test your app by visiting yourappsubdomain.yourwebsite.com

That's it! As you do this more often, the more you'll appreciate how fast it is to deploy applications with docker and docker-compose with caddy v2!

Refer to the readme at: https://github.com/StarWhiz/docker_deployment_notes for command references