41.01 Portainer containers

Setup portainer

To setup portainer, use the sibling article 41.00 Setting up a VPS

Creating a node-js container.

Example

It is probably easier to start from my template. Otherwise you’ll need to know how Express, Node, Docker, Github and .yml works.

The container image: ghcr.io/oldmartijntje/example-node-docker-api:main and default port: 3001

Want to know how this example works, and how to edit it, 20.15 Basic Node website

I am not going to explain how to setup an node api here. You can find that in 20.15 Basic Node website.

You need to only really add a few files to your 20.08 node js api:

• docker-compose.yml - optional, but reccomended
• Dockerfile
• .github/workflows/release.yml
• .dockerignore

.dockerignore

.dockerignore should be the same as .gitignore, but at least put the following:

.dockerignore

This file doesn’t have a file extention, and must be in your root folder.

Dockerfile

Dockerfile also doesnt have a file extension, and must also be in the root folder. It should include the following:

# Specify a base image
FROM node:alpine
 
#Install some dependencies
 
WORKDIR /usr/app
COPY ./ /usr/app
RUN npm install
 
EXPOSE 3001
 
# Set up a default command
CMD [ "npm","start" ]

What it does is expose a port (so it can be used), npm install, and start the application.

npm run start

This is the command that get’s run, this works because I have configured this command in my package.json:

{
   "dependencies": {
       "cors": "^2.8.5",
       "dotenv": "^16.4.5",
       "express": "^4.19.2"
   },
   "scripts": {
       "start": "node server.js",
       "dev": "nodemon server.js"
   },
   "devDependencies": {
       "nodemon": "^3.1.3"
   }
}

docker-compose.yml

info

You only need this to run it locally on docker. you don’t need this for portainer.

Running it locally is a good way to debug.

docker-compose.yml should once again be in the root folder. This is the deploy file, which will be used.

version: '3'
services:
  api:
    image: ghcr.io/oldmartijntje/oldmartijntje.nl-api:main
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"

Replace the image url with your own. You can find it under the packages in your github repo, for example: mine

release.yml

.github/workflows/release.yml should be in the workflows folder, which is inside the .github folder. The contents are too large to just paste here, so copy it from here

Adding a container.

Info

This part will assume you followed the above steps with the node container or use the default example.

On your Portainer, navigate to the containers page and create a new one with the add container button.

Here you got to choose a name, spaces and special characters are not allowed, dashes are.

In the Image field, we are going to put the following: ghcr.io/<your_github_name>/<repo_name>):main

scroll down to Port mapping and click the button map additional port. here you can select which ports to run it on. By putting a port here manually, you’ll overwrite the docker-compose.yml.

now go to http://<your_IP>:<port>

update a portainer container

In a stack you have to:

1. open the stack
2. editor tab >
3. update the stack button
4. Re-pull image and redeploy toggle

on a container you have to open it and click recreate and select Re-pull image

Adding a domain to your portainer port