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CapRover (local kind of Heroku)

Table of Contents

CapRover (local kind of Heroku)

Prerequisite

  • server (Ubuntu LTS) and ssh access
  • DNS A type record (to the server’s IP)
  • e-mail address for HTTPS registration (could be a fake one)
  • network ports opened as per CapRover documentation:
ufw allow 80,443,3000,996,7946,4789,2377/tcp; ufw allow 7946,4789,2377/udp;

Only 80 & 443 ports need to be opened to the public internet (as per ticket) + 22 for SSH (or whatever the port is).

Installing CapRover

(as per CapRover, NodeJS docs)

sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
echo "/swapfile    none    swap    sw    0   0" >> /etc/fstab
sudo swapon --show


wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexander-potemkin/quickies/main/docker_ubuntu.sh | bash
# sudo usermod -aG docker `whoami` # only for non-root
sudo snap install node --classic --channel=18
sudo npm install -g caprover # cli
docker run -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 3000:3000 -e ACCEPTED_TERMS=true -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /captain:/captain caprover/caprover
curl -4 ifconfig.co #note IP address
vi caprover.json

caprover.json template below (doc):

{
  "caproverIP": "127.0.0.1",
  "caproverPassword": "captain42",
  "caproverRootDomain": "domain_name",
  "newPassword": "",
  "certificateEmail": "your@email.com",
  "caproverName": "captain-01"
}

Followed by:

caprover setup -c caprover.json

Interactive (Q&A) setup could be executed via caprover serversetup

Now go to http://IP_address:3000 (note HTTP, without **S**) port, and proceed with captain42 as a default password.

Migrating CapRover

(as per doc).

Rollout a new server as per ‘Installation process’, but without last docker run command, then run the following commands:

sftp server-label
mkdir /captain
cp caprover-backup-*.tar /captain/backup.tar
docker run -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 3000:3000 -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /captain:/captain caprover/caprover
sudo docker ps # compare the output with the initial server

[!NOTE] Good instruction is at 2023-07-09 Steps below are moved from there, but not verified / purified.

Install new instance. Make a backup and restore from it.

[!NOTE] Steps below corrupts source system! It will fail with ‘invalid mount config for type “bind”: bind source path does not exist’

Data backup:

docker service ls --format {{.Name}} | while read in; do docker service scale "$in"=0; done
docker ps # to verify - no containers are running
docker volume ls
docker volume ls --format {{.Name}} | while read in; do echo "$in:" && docker run -v "$in":/volume --rm --log-driver none loomchild/volume-backup backup -v > ""$in"".tbz2; done
docker service ls --format {{.Name}} | while read in; do docker service scale "$in"=1; done

sftp with ‘get’ to the source and ‘put’ to the destination, followed by:

docker service ls --format {{.Name}} | while read in; do docker service scale "$in"=0; done
docker ps


ls *.tbz2 | while read in; do echo "$in => "${in%.tbz2}":" && docker run -i -v ${in%.tbz2}:/volume --rm loomchild/volume-backup restore -v -f < "$in"; done # WARNING: '-f' parameter is in place - override


docker volume ls


service docker restart # seems to be a more reliable way to restart
# docker service ls --format {{.Name}} | while read in; do docker service scale "$in"=1; done

Make DNS change, otherwise nginx & captain dockers are failing; do deploy of the main app.

DNS configuration

create DNS record like that one:

*.sub-domain A 1H IP address

  1. At the Dashboard, link with DNS name: lhk.domain.name
  2. After CapRover updates to HTTPS, at Chrome type thisisunsafe to ignore invalid SSL certificate.
  3. Enable HTTPS
  4. Enjoy!

Logs monitoring

Install Dozzle from one click apps, as per this advice: https://github.com/caprover/caprover/issues/1140

Local registry setup

Cluster -> Setup

caprover ls
# make sure you're logged in to your instance. It should be in the list.


caprover api
# select your server
# for path, use /user/registries
# for method, use "GET"
# for API data JSON string, leave it empty.
# the output is like this:
{
  "registries": [
    {
      "id": "abcd-abcd-abcd-abcd-abcd",
      "registryDomain": "registry.root.domain.com:996",
      "registryImagePrefix": "captain",
      "registryUser": "captain",
      "registryPassword": "abcd-abcd-abcd-abcd-abcd",
      "registryType": "LOCAL_REG"
    }
  ],
  "defaultPushRegistryId": ""
}

GitHub Deployment keys

ssh-keygen -m PEM -t rsa -b 4096 -C projectname , enter ./id_rsa and get the keys.

cat id_rsa and send that to CapRover’s Deployment page

cat id_rsa.pub and deliver that key to GitHub’s Deployment Key (under settings of repository)

Automatic updates with the source code

Gather webhook URL from CapRover settings.

GitHub → Repository → Settings → Webhooks →add it there,

SSL certificate update

#!/bin/bash
set -e


echo "Bringing firewall down"
/root/firewall_down.sh


echo "Starting renewal task"
docker exec `sudo docker ps --filter name=certbot -q` /usr/local/bin/certbot renew # -it for interactive mode


echo "Giving it time to work things out (60 seconds sleep)"
sleep 60


echo "Bringing firewall back up"
/root/firewall_up.sh

One-click app update

https://github.com/caprover/caprover/issues/1008

Troubleshooting CapRover

Cleaning up cache

Don’t do that, unless absolutely required. Can have unexpected side effects.

as per GitHub issue

docker builder prune --all

https://caprover.com/docs/troubleshooting.html

CapRover logs

docker service logs captain-captain --since 60m --follow

From the server

sudo docker exec -it `sudo docker ps --filter name=srv-captain -q` /bin/sh

Password reset

sudo su -
apt install jq
docker service scale captain-captain=0
cp /captain/data/config-captain.json /captain/data/config-captain.json.backup
jq 'del(.hashedPassword)' /captain/data/config-captain.json > /captain/data/config-captain.json.new
cat /captain/data/config-captain.json.new > /captain/data/config-captain.json
rm /captain/data/config-captain.json.new
# set a temporary password
docker service update --env-add DEFAULT_PASSWORD=captain42 captain-captain
docker service scale captain-captain=1

Restart CapRover

docker service update captain-captain --force

Removing CapRover

docker service rm $(docker service ls -q)
## remove CapRover settings directory
rm -rf /captain
## leave swarm if you don't want it
docker swarm leave --force
## full cleanup of docker
docker system prune --all --force

Notes

I considered Coolify, didn’t it didn’t work well - more details at 2023-10-20, but on a high level - the features doesn’t work as I expected them to work, original installation was not working, MongoDB never started, as I expected.