Docker container for Nginx Proxy Manager

This project implements a Docker container for Nginx Proxy Manager.

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Nginx Proxy Manager enables you to easily forward to your websites running at home or otherwise, including free SSL, without having to know too much about Nginx or Letsencrypt.

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Table of Content

• Quick Start
• Usage
  • Environment Variables
    • Deployment Considerations
  • Data Volumes
  • Ports
  • Changing Parameters of a Running Container
• Docker Compose File
• Docker Image Versioning
• Docker Image Update
  • Synology
  • unRAID
• User/Group IDs
• Accessing the GUI
• Shell Access
• Default Administrator Account
• Accessibility From The Internet
• Troubleshooting
  • Password Reset
• Support or Contact

Quick Start

NOTE: The Docker command provided in this quick start is given as an example and parameters should be adjusted to your need.

Launch the Nginx Proxy Manager docker container with the following command:

docker run -d \
    --name=nginx-proxy-manager \
    -p 8181:8181 \
    -p 8080:8080 \
    -p 4443:4443 \
    -v /docker/appdata/nginx-proxy-manager:/config:rw \
    jlesage/nginx-proxy-manager

Where:

• /docker/appdata/nginx-proxy-manager: This is where the application stores its configuration, states, log and any files needing persistency.

Browse to http://your-host-ip:8181 to access the Nginx Proxy Manager web interface.

Usage

docker run [-d] \
    --name=nginx-proxy-manager \
    [-e <VARIABLE_NAME>=<VALUE>]... \
    [-v <HOST_DIR>:<CONTAINER_DIR>[:PERMISSIONS]]... \
    [-p <HOST_PORT>:<CONTAINER_PORT>]... \
    jlesage/nginx-proxy-manager

Parameter	Description
-d	Run the container in the background. If not set, the container runs in the foreground.
-e	Pass an environment variable to the container. See the Environment Variables section for more details.
-v	Set a volume mapping (allows to share a folder/file between the host and the container). See the Data Volumes section for more details.
-p	Set a network port mapping (exposes an internal container port to the host). See the Ports section for more details.

Environment Variables

To customize some properties of the container, the following environment variables can be passed via the -e parameter (one for each variable). Value of this parameter has the format <VARIABLE_NAME>=<VALUE>.

Variable	Description	Default
USER_ID	ID of the user the application runs as. See User/Group IDs to better understand when this should be set.	1000
GROUP_ID	ID of the group the application runs as. See User/Group IDs to better understand when this should be set.	1000
SUP_GROUP_IDS	Comma-separated list of supplementary group IDs of the application.	(no value)
UMASK	Mask that controls how permissions are set for newly created files and folders. The value of the mask is in octal notation. By default, the default umask value is 0022, meaning that newly created files and folders are readable by everyone, but only writable by the owner. See the online umask calculator at http://wintelguy.com/umask-calc.pl.	0022
LANG	Set the locale, which defines the application's language, if supported. Format of the locale is language[_territory][.codeset], where language is an ISO 639 language code, territory is an ISO 3166 country code and codeset is a character set, like UTF-8. For example, Australian English using the UTF-8 encoding is en_AU.UTF-8.	en_US.UTF-8
TZ	TimeZone used by the container. Timezone can also be set by mapping /etc/localtime between the host and the container.	Etc/UTC
KEEP_APP_RUNNING	When set to 1, the application will be automatically restarted when it crashes or terminates.	0
APP_NICENESS	Priority at which the application should run. A niceness value of -20 is the highest priority and 19 is the lowest priority. The default niceness value is 0. NOTE: A negative niceness (priority increase) requires additional permissions. In this case, the container should be run with the docker option --cap-add=SYS_NICE.	0
INSTALL_PACKAGES	Space-separated list of packages to install during the startup of the container. List of available packages can be found at https://mirrors.alpinelinux.org. ATTENTION: Container functionality can be affected when installing a package that overrides existing container files (e.g. binaries).	(no value)
PACKAGES_MIRROR	Mirror of the repository to use when installing packages. List of mirrors is available at https://mirrors.alpinelinux.org.	(no value)
CONTAINER_DEBUG	Set to 1 to enable debug logging.	0
DISABLE_IPV6	When set to 1, IPv6 support is disabled. This is needed when IPv6 is not enabled/supported on the host.	0

Deployment Considerations

Many tools used to manage Docker containers extract environment variables defined by the Docker image and use them to create/deploy the container. For example, this is done by:

• The Docker application on Synology NAS
• The Container Station on QNAP NAS
• Portainer
• etc.

While this can be useful for the user to adjust the value of environment variables to fit its needs, it can also be confusing and dangerous to keep all of them.

A good practice is to set/keep only the variables that are needed for the container to behave as desired in a specific setup. If the value of variable is kept to its default value, it means that it can be removed. Keep in mind that all variables are optional, meaning that none of them is required for the container to start.

Removing environment variables that are not needed provides some advantages:

• Prevents keeping variables that are no longer used by the container. Over time, with image updates, some variables might be removed.
• Allows the Docker image to change/fix a default value. Again, with image updates, the default value of a variable might be changed to fix an issue, or to better support a new feature.
• Prevents changes to a variable that might affect the correct function of the container. Some undocumented variables, like PATH or ENV, are required to be exposed, but are not meant to be changed by users. However, container management tools still show these variables to users.
• There is a bug with the Container Station on QNAP and the Docker application on Synology, where an environment variable without value might not be allowed. This behavior is wrong: it's absolutely fine to have a variable without value. In fact, this container does have variables without value by default. Thus, removing unneeded variables is a good way to prevent deployment issue on these devices.

Data Volumes

The following table describes data volumes used by the container. The mappings are set via the -v parameter. Each mapping is specified with the following format: <HOST_DIR>:<CONTAINER_DIR>[:PERMISSIONS].

Container path	Permissions	Description
/config	rw	This is where the application stores its configuration, states, log and any files needing persistency.

Ports

Here is the list of ports used by the container.

When using the default bridge network, ports can be mapped to the host via the -p parameter (one per port mapping). Each mapping is defined with the following format: <HOST_PORT>:<CONTAINER_PORT>. The port number used inside the container might not be changeable, but you are free to use any port on the host side.

See the Docker Container Networking documentation for more details.

Port	Protocol	Mapping to host	Description
8181	TCP	Mandatory	Port used to access the web interface of the application.
8080	TCP	Mandatory	Port used to serve HTTP requests.
4443	TCP	Mandatory	Port used to serve HTTPs requests.

Changing Parameters of a Running Container

As can be seen, environment variables, volume and port mappings are all specified while creating the container.

The following steps describe the method used to add, remove or update parameter(s) of an existing container. The general idea is to destroy and re-create the container:

1. Stop the container (if it is running):

docker stop nginx-proxy-manager

2. Remove the container:

docker rm nginx-proxy-manager

3. Create/start the container using the docker run command, by adjusting parameters as needed.

NOTE: Since all application's data is saved under the /config container folder, destroying and re-creating a container is not a problem: nothing is lost and the application comes back with the same state (as long as the mapping of the /config folder remains the same).

Docker Compose File

Here is an example of a docker-compose.yml file that can be used with Docker Compose.

Make sure to adjust according to your needs. Note that only mandatory network ports are part of the example.

version: '3'
services:
  nginx-proxy-manager:
    image: jlesage/nginx-proxy-manager
    ports:
      - "8181:8181"
      - "8080:8080"
      - "4443:4443"
    volumes:
      - "/docker/appdata/nginx-proxy-manager:/config:rw"

Docker Image Versioning

Each release of a Docker image is versioned. Prior to october 2022, the semantic versioning was used as the versioning scheme.

Since then, versioning scheme changed to calendar versioning. The format used is YY.MM.SEQUENCE, where:

• YY is the zero-padded year (relative to year 2000).
• MM is the zero-padded month.
• SEQUENCE is the incremental release number within the month (first release is 1, second is 2, etc).

Docker Image Update

Because features are added, issues are fixed, or simply because a new version of the containerized application is integrated, the Docker image is regularly updated. Different methods can be used to update the Docker image.

The system used to run the container may have a built-in way to update containers. If so, this could be your primary way to update Docker images.

An other way is to have the image be automatically updated with Watchtower. Watchtower is a container-based solution for automating Docker image updates. This is a "set and forget" type of solution: once a new image is available, Watchtower will seamlessly perform the necessary steps to update the container.

Finally, the Docker image can be manually updated with these steps:

1. Fetch the latest image:

docker pull jlesage/nginx-proxy-manager

2. Stop the container:

docker stop nginx-proxy-manager

3. Remove the container:

docker rm nginx-proxy-manager

4. Create and start the container using the docker run command, with the the same parameters that were used when it was deployed initially.

Synology

For owners of a Synology NAS, the following steps can be used to update a container image.

1. Open the Docker application.
2. Click on Registry in the left pane.
3. In the search bar, type the name of the container (jlesage/nginx-proxy-manager).
4. Select the image, click Download and then choose the latest tag.
5. Wait for the download to complete. A notification will appear once done.
6. Click on Container in the left pane.
7. Select your Nginx Proxy Manager container.
8. Stop it by clicking Action->Stop.
9. Clear the container by clicking Action->Reset (or Action->Clear if you don't have the latest Docker application). This removes the container while keeping its configuration.
10. Start the container again by clicking Action->Start. NOTE: The container may temporarily disappear from the list while it is re-created.

unRAID

For unRAID, a container image can be updated by following these steps:

1. Select the Docker tab.
2. Click the Check for Updates button at the bottom of the page.
3. Click the update ready link of the container to be updated.

User/Group IDs

When using data volumes (-v flags), permissions issues can occur between the host and the container. For example, the user within the container may not exist on the host. This could prevent the host from properly accessing files and folders on the shared volume.

To avoid any problem, you can specify the user the application should run as.

This is done by passing the user ID and group ID to the container via the USER_ID and GROUP_ID environment variables.

To find the right IDs to use, issue the following command on the host, with the user owning the data volume on the host:

id <username>

Which gives an output like this one:

uid=1000(myuser) gid=1000(myuser) groups=1000(myuser),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),46(plugdev),113(lpadmin)

The value of uid (user ID) and gid (group ID) are the ones that you should be given the container.

Accessing the GUI

Assuming that container's ports are mapped to the same host's ports, the interface of the application can be accessed with a web browser at:

http://<HOST IP ADDR>:8181

Shell Access

To get shell access to the running container, execute the following command:

docker exec -ti CONTAINER sh

Where CONTAINER is the ID or the name of the container used during its creation.

Default Administrator Account

After a fresh install, use the following credentials to login:

• Email address: [email protected]
• Password: changeme

After you login with this default user, you will be asked to modify your details and change your password.

Accessibility From The Internet

NOTE: This section assumes that the container is using the default bridge network type.

For this container to be accessible from the Internet, port forwarding must be configured on your router. This allows HTTP (port 80) and HTTPs (port 443) traffic from the Internet to reach this container on your private network.

Configuration of port forwarding differs from one router to another, but in general the same information must be configured:

• External port: The Internet-side port to be forwarded.
• Internal port: The port to forward to. Also called private port.
• Destination IP address: The IP address of the device on the local network to forward to. Also called private IP address.

The IP address to forward to should be the IP address of the host running the container. The port to forward to should be the port mapped to the container during its creation (via the -p parameter of the docker run command).

Since the container needs to handle both HTTP and HTTPs traffic, two ports need to be forwarded:

Traffic type	Container port	Host port mapped to container	External port	Internal port	Internal IP address
HTTP	8080	XXXX	80	XXXX	IP address of the host running the container.
HTTPs	4443	YYYY	443	YYYY	IP address of the host running the container.

XXXX and YYYY are configurable port values. Unless they conflict with other used ports on the host, they can simply be set to the same value as the container port.

NOTE: Some routers don't offer the ability to configure the internal port to forward to. This means that internal port is the same as the external one. In a such scenario, XXXX must be set to 80 and YYYY to 443.

For more details about port forwarding, see the following links:

• How to Port Forward - General Guide to Multiple Router Brands
• How to Forward Ports on Your Router

Troubleshooting

Password Reset

The password of a user can be reset to changeme with the following command:

docker exec CONTAINER_NAME /opt/nginx-proxy-manager/bin/reset-password USER_EMAIL

Where:

• CONTAINER_NAME is the name of the running container.
• USER_EMAIL is the email of the address to reset the password.

Support or Contact

Having troubles with the container or have questions? Please create a new issue.

For other great Dockerized applications, see https://jlesage.github.io/docker-apps.