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Docker Compose Template

Guidelines

These guidelines are suggested in order to maximise reliability of hosted services.

  • Store secrets and tokens in a .env file adjacent to the docker-compose.yml file.
    • The environment variables are automatically interpolated when docker compose up is called.
    • If multiple .env files are required (for separation of secrets), then use <CONTAINER_NAME>.env (e.g. gitea.env) and add an override in the docker-compose.yml file. See the Docker documentation for more details.
  • Always used tagged images.
    • Avoid using latest. By default, Docker hub automatically tags the most recently pushed image as latest, unless overriden by the image maintainer. This means that you might be running bleeding edge/alpha/vulnerable versions.
    • Often images expect a specific version of a container to be running in order for DB migrations to work. This is especially important with Postgres where major versions are not always forwards compatible.
  • Separate frontend and backend services using different networks.
    • Docker Compose manages the creation/destruction of these networks for you. Please see the examples below.
  • Volumes should be placed in a volumes directory adjacent the docker-compose.yml file.
    • Prefix volume directories with the name of the container.
    • See the directory structure below for an example.
  • Mount /etc/timezone and /etc/localtime where timestamps are used by the container.
    • See below for an example.

An example directory structure is shown below:

.
├── .env
├── docker-compose.yml
├── start.sh
└── volumes/
    ├── gitea_config/
    │   └── ...
    ├── gitea_data/
    │   └── ...
    └── postgres_data/
        └── ...

Gitea

.env

CLOUDFLARE_TUNNEL_TOKEN=abc...

docker-compose.yml

version: '3'
services:
  tunnel:
    image: cloudflare/cloudflared:2024.4.0       # Use version tags to ensure only stable software is used.
    restart: unless-stopped                      # This restart command helps with crashing services.
    command: tunnel run
    networks:
      - frontend                                 # Use multiple networks to isolate services.
    environment:
      - TUNNEL_TOKEN=${CLOUDFLARE_TUNNEL_TOKEN}  # Use environment variables loaded via a .env file for tokens.
  gitea:
    image: gitea/gitea:1.12.10-rootless
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      - frontend
      - backend
    volumes:
      - ./volumes/gitea_data:/var/lib/gitea
      - ./volumes/gitea_config:/etc/gitea
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro          # Mount timezone/localtime so that timestamps are correct.
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
  db:
    image: postgres:14
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      - backend
    volumes:
      - ./volumes/postgres_data
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=gitea
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=gitea
      - POSTGRES_DB=gitea
networks:
  backend:
  frontend:
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