Deploy using Docker Compose on DigitalOcean

Journey · April 29, 2024

docker compose easy

Welcome to our tutorial on hosting your Journey Sync Drive using Docker Compose on DigitalOcean. This guide is designed to be easy to follow, with an estimated setup time of just 45 minutes.

Before we dive in, make sure you have the following:

DigitalOcean account
Domain

Create a Droplet

Log in to your DigitalOcean dashboard and navigate to “Create” > “Droplets”.
Choose your preferred region to host your data.

Tip: Select a region that’s closer to you for optimal performance.
Under “Select Image”, choose “Ubuntu 24.04 (LTS) x64” as your operating system.
Select your preferred Droplet type. For this tutorial, we’ll choose “Basic” > “Regular (Disk type: SSD)” with specs “4 GB / 2 CPUs, 80 GB SSD Disk, 4 TB transfer”.
We strongly recommend that you turn on the “Enable automated backup plan.”
For authentication, choose “SSH key” instead of “Password”. Follow the instructions to set up a new SSH key.

Note: Weak passwords can compromise security, so it’s best to use SSH keys for authentication.
Give your Droplet a hostname, such as “john-appleseed-journal”.
Click on “Create Droplet” to proceed.
Once your Droplet is created, you’ll see it listed in your dashboard. It should look like this:

Install Docker

Click on the “Launch Console” button located at the top right corner of the dashboard.
Once clicked, a console window will open. If you are prompted to install the console agent, please wait for a moment and then refresh the page. After refreshing, try launching the console again.
First, update your existing list of packages.
```
sudo apt update
```
Next, install a few prerequisite packages which let apt use packages over HTTPS. When prompted, type Y and press ENTER to continue with the installation.
```
sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
```

Then add the GPG key for the official Docker repository to your system.

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Add the Docker repository to APT sources. Press ENTER to continue.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal stable"

This will also update your package database with the Docker packages from the newly added repo. Make sure you are about to install from the Docker repo instead of the default Ubuntu repo.
```
apt-cache policy docker-ce
```
You’ll see output similar to this, although the version number for Docker might vary. Notice that docker-ce is not installed, yet the candidate for installation originates from the Docker repository for Ubuntu 20.04 (focal).
```
docker-ce:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 5:26.1.0-1~ubuntu.20.04~focal
  Version table:
  5:26.1.0-1~ubuntu.20.04~focal 500
     500 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal/stable amd64 Packages
```
Finally, install Docker. When prompted, type Y and press ENTER to continue with the installation.
```
sudo apt install docker-ce
```
Docker should now be installed, the daemon started, and the process enabled to start on boot. Check that it’s running.
```
sudo systemctl status docker
```

The output should be similar to the following, showing that the service is active and running.

● docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
 Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
 Active: active (running) since Tue 2024-04-30 08:07:26 UTC; 2min 11s ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
   Docs: https://docs.docker.com
   Main PID: 3690 (dockerd)
  Tasks: 9
 Memory: 27.8M (peak: 30.0M)
    CPU: 386ms
 CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
         └─3690 /usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// --containerd=/run/containerd/containerd.sock

Navigate to your user directory and create a folder named compose. Change directory to this folder.
```
cd ~/
mkdir compose
cd compose
```
Visit the GitHub repository here and locate the docker-compose.yml file. Copy its contents and paste them into a text editor like Notepad or VS Code. Within the copied content, locate and modify the following fields:
- DOMAIN: Replace both journey-sync-self-hosted-service & journey-sync-self-hosted-media services of this field with your desired domain name. Example: johnappleseed.com
- SIGNED: Change this field to a unique value.
- ADMIN_JS_COOKIE_PASSWORD: Modify this field with a unique password.
In the console, create docker-compose.yml with a text editor.
```
nano docker-compose.yml
```
Paste the content from your PC Notepad. Then enter Control+X ^X. Enter Y and press ENTER to save.
Pull the images.
```
docker compose pull
```
Run the services.
```
docker compose up -d
```

The output should show this:

[+] Running 10/10
 ✔ Network root_default                               Created                                               0.1s 
 ✔ Volume "root_journey-redis-volume"                 Created                                               0.0s 
 ✔ Volume "root_journey-typesense-volume"             Created                                               0.0s 
 ✔ Volume "root_journey-fs-volume"                    Created                                               0.0s 
 ✔ Volume "root_journey-mongodb-volume"               Created                                               0.0s 
 ✔ Container root-journey-redis-service-1             Started                                               0.9s 
 ✔ Container root-journey-typesense-service-1         Start...                                              0.9s 
 ✔ Container root-journey-mongodb-service-1           Started                                               1.0s 
 ✔ Container root-journey-sync-self-hosted-service-1  Started                                               0.0s 
 ✔ Container root-journey-sync-self-hosted-media-1    Started 

Once the services are loaded, check if all are loaded correctly.
```
docker compose ps -a
```

The output should show that all of the 5 services are alive.

NAME                                      IMAGE                                   COMMAND                  SERVICE                            CREATED          STATUS          PORTS
root-journey-mongodb-service-1            mongo:7.0                               "docker-entrypoint.s…"   journey-mongodb-service            46 seconds ago   Up 44 seconds   27017/tcp
root-journey-redis-service-1              redis:7.2.4-alpine                      "docker-entrypoint.s…"   journey-redis-service              46 seconds ago   Up 44 seconds   6379/tcp
root-journey-sync-self-hosted-media-1     journeycloud/journey-sync-self-hosted   "npm run launchMedia"    journey-sync-self-hosted-media     45 seconds ago   Up 43 seconds   8080/tcp
root-journey-sync-self-hosted-service-1   journeycloud/journey-sync-self-hosted   "npm run launch"         journey-sync-self-hosted-service   45 seconds ago   Up 43 seconds   0.0.0.0:8080->8080/tcp, :::8080->8080/tcp
root-journey-typesense-service-1          typesense/typesense:26.0                "/opt/typesense-serv…"   journey-typesense-service          46 seconds ago   Up 44 seconds   8108/tcp

Install Nginx & Certbot

Install Nginx. When prompted, type Y and press ENTER to continue with the installation.
```
sudo apt install nginx
```
At the end of the installation process, Ubuntu starts Nginx. The web server should already be up and running. You can verify that the service is running by typing:
```
systemctl status nginx
```

The output should show that nginx is active.

● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
  Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
  Active: active (running) since Wed 2024-05-01 06:14:06 UTC; 50s ago
    Docs: man:nginx(8)
 Process: 10622 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SU>
 Process: 10623 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 10625 (nginx)
   Tasks: 3 (limit: 4658)
  Memory: 2.4M (peak: 2.6M)
     CPU: 17ms
  CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
          ├─10625 "nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;"
          ├─10626 "nginx: worker process"
          └─10627 "nginx: worker process"

In the Droplet dashboard, you can retrieve the public IP address or domain.
Paste the IP address or your domain into the browser, and you should see that the Nginx web server is successfully installed and working.

Skip this step if you have already setup a domain that is directed to this Droplet. To direct the domain to the Droplet, refer to this link. Once done, go back to step 4 & 5. In the above example, we setup our domain by adding A record to the IP address of the Droplet. For the name, you can enter either @ if you would like the root of the domain or name for subdomain.

Name	Your Domain will look like this
@	johnappleseed.com
journal	journal.johnappleseed.com

Open a text editor to configure nginx further. Replace <domain> with your domain.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/<domain>

Example:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/johnappleseed.com

Paste the text shown below into the file. Replace <domain> with your domain. Then enter Control+X ^X. Enter Y and press ENTER to save.

server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  server_name <domain>;
  location / {
     proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
  }
}

Replace <domain> with your domain.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/<domain> /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Configure nginx configuration.
```
nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
```
Insert these lines of code client_max_body_size 100M; and proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; into http section. Then enter Control+X ^X. Enter Y and press ENTER to save.
```
http {
  ##
  # Basic Settings
  ##
  client_max_body_size 100M;
  proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
```
Check if the nginx configuration is properly set.
```
nginx -t
```

You should see this output.

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Journey clients require encrypted HTTPS on web servers. We will use Certbot to obtain a free SSL certificate for Nginx on Ubuntu and set up your certificate to renew automatically. To begin, install cerbot and its dependencies. When prompted, type Y and press ENTER to continue with the installation.
```
apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
```
Execute certbot. Replace <domain> with your domain.
```
sudo certbot --nginx -d <domain>
```
Enter your email address.
Type Y and press ENTER to continue with the installation.