Setup Docker/Ngnix and Let's Encrypt on Ubuntu

May 22, 2020 | 3 min read

This is a note for setting up a Docker, Nginx and Let's Encrypt environment on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Install Docker using the convenience script

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh

Manage Docker as a non-root user

If you don't want to preface the docker command with sudo, create a Unix group called docker and add users to it. When the Docker daemon starts, it creates a Unix socket accessible by members of the docker group.

To create the docker group and add your user:

Create the docker group.

sudo groupadd docker

Add your user to the docker group.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out and log back in so that your group membership is re-evaluated.

On Linux, you can also run the following command to activate the changes to groups:

newgrp docker

Configure Docker to start on boot

sudo systemctl enable docker

To disable this behavior, use disable instead.

sudo systemctl disable docker

Install Docker Compose

On Linux, you can download the Docker Compose binary from the Compose repository release page on GitHub. Follow the instructions from the link, which involve running the curl command in your terminal to download the binaries. These step-by-step instructions are also included below.

Run this command to download the current stable release of Docker Compose:

$ sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.25.5/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Apply executable permissions to the binary:

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

If the command docker-compose fails after installation, check your path. You can also create a symbolic link to /usr/bin or any other directory in your path. For example:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/docker-compose /usr/bin/docker-compose

Set up Nginx-Proxy

Create a unique network for nginx-proxy and other Docker containers to communicate through.

docker network create nginx-proxy

Create a directory nginx-proxy for the compose file.

mkdir nginx-proxy && cd nginx-proxy

In the nginx-proxy directory, create a new file named docker-compose.yml and paste in the following text:

version: '3'

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx
    restart: always
    container_name: nginx-proxy
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
      - html:/usr/share/nginx/html
      - certs:/etc/nginx/certs
    labels:
      - "com.github.jrcs.letsencrypt_nginx_proxy_companion.nginx_proxy=true"

  dockergen:
    image: jwilder/docker-gen
    restart: always
    container_name: nginx-proxy-gen
    depends_on:
      - nginx
    command: -notify-sighup nginx-proxy -watch -wait 5s:30s /etc/docker-gen/templates/nginx.tmpl /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
    volumes:
      - conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
      - html:/usr/share/nginx/html
      - certs:/etc/nginx/certs
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
      - ./nginx.tmpl:/etc/docker-gen/templates/nginx.tmpl:ro

  letsencrypt:
    image: jrcs/letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion
    restart: always
    container_name: nginx-proxy-le
    depends_on:
      - nginx
      - dockergen
    environment:
      NGINX_PROXY_CONTAINER: nginx-proxy
      NGINX_DOCKER_GEN_CONTAINER: nginx-proxy-gen
    volumes:
      - conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
      - html:/usr/share/nginx/html
      - certs:/etc/nginx/certs
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

volumes:
  conf:
  vhost:
  html:
  certs:

networks:
  default:
    external:
      name: nginx-proxy

Inside of the nginx-proxy directory, use the following curl command to copy the developer’s sample nginx.tmpl file to your VPS.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jwilder/nginx-proxy/master/nginx.tmpl > nginx.tmpl

Running nginx-proxy.

docker-compose up -d

Add a WordPress container

Create a directory for the docker-compose.yml with:

version: "3"

services:
  db_node_domain:
    image: mysql:5.7
    volumes:
        - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
    restart: always
    environment:
        MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: somewordpress
        MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
        MYSQL_USER: wordpress
        MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress
    container_name: wp_test_db

  wordpress:
    depends_on:
        - db_node_domain
    image: wordpress:latest
    expose:
        - 80
    restart: always
    environment:
        VIRTUAL_HOST: blog.example.com
        LETSENCRYPT_HOST: blog.example.com
        LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL: foo@example.com
        WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db_node_domain:3306
        WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
        WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
    container_name: wp_test
volumes:
  db_data:

networks:
  default:
    external:
      name: nginx-proxy

To create a second WordPress container, add MYSQL_TCP_PORT environment variable and set it to a different port.

Increase maximum WordPress upload file size

Enter the bash of the WordPress container.

docker exec -t wordpress_container_name bash

Move inside your /var/www/html directory (already there if you’re using the standard Docker Compose image). Run the following command to insert the values.

sed -i '/^# END WordPress.*/i php_value upload_max_filesize 256M\nphp_value post_max_size 256M' .htaccess