Hosting Dockerized website on VPS with Apache
from bestbakerycookie@lemmy.wtf to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 22 Mar 12:34
https://lemmy.wtf/post/39865709

I made a Docker container of a website that’s difficult to deploy, and I can reliably deploy it on localhost on my personal machine. The container sets up an Apache server with all the files and config to run the website.

However, the story is different on my VPS running Ubuntu and Apache. I have two other websites running on the same VPS, each with different domains, and when I deploy the dockerized website I can’t access that site. I opened ports on UFW. The Docker container sets the site to run on port 8000, and I tried running a reverse proxy on just that site with Apache by defining a config pointing towards the internal Docker IP on port 8000, but no luck.

Now I’m thinking of running a reverse proxy, but I haven’t found any guides covering my situation: routing websites on both the host machine and through Docker. nginx-proxy looks to cover only Docker containers, and the Apache reverse proxy couldn’t access the Docker container.

What are my options here? I plan to dockerize everything eventually, but that will be sometime in the future and not right away.

#selfhosted

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ryokimball@infosec.pub on 22 Mar 12:42 next collapse

I am sick and slightly out of my mind anyway so I’m not going to be very helpful. One thing that stands out though, if you can SSH the machine and you can curl local host to Port 8,000 or whatever. This should help you troubleshooting the container while it lives on the VPS I think

frongt@lemmy.zip on 22 Mar 12:58 next collapse

You need to provide a lot more information about your environment and how the server is configured, and any useful log info.

mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud on 22 Mar 13:08 next collapse

First off, when you run a container without an outside IP set. Docker will bind that port, in your case 8000 to all ports. So hitting any of the domains on the vps on port 8000 should show your docker site.

Second, if your VPS is like my OVH VPS then it has only an internet IP. So any open ports are open to the internet at large.

If you want to host lots of sites on a single IP, then you will need a reverse proxy of some sort. I would recommend that your docker site is using 127.0.0.1:8000:8000 so that it’s only visible on the VPS. (If your ports are different then use what you and prefix 127.0.0.1)

I run similar to your setup, nextcloud is in a VM and lots of docker sites. What do you need to know?

hendrik@palaver.p3x.de on 22 Mar 14:20 next collapse

Yeah, You’ll have to do a lot more troubleshooting than this. Did Docker successfully bind to port 8000? Can you curl it from the VPS itself? Does the container and the things in it run properly? Are there any error messages in the logs?

I’m not a Docker expert, but I’d start with the docker commands which show if a container is running and which ports it actually binds. Maybe a ss -at. then do a curl http://localhost:8000 and see if it returns your webpage. If it doesn’t, you need to fix your webpage container first. Or see if you can come up with an easier method to deploy your website.

A reverse proxy in any shape or form, will require your website to run, first.

MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 22 Mar 14:35 collapse

Start with basic diagnostics, see if apache is running inside the container, if it is can you curl from inside the container, if that works can you curl from the docker host, if that works did docker create the firewall rule to expose the port or is the VPS overriding things in some way?

If that all looks good, is there a VPS provider firewall in place outside the OS?

Gotta start with the basics.