Struggling with Docker, is there another way?

P.S. I worked out how to run it on a different port - I turned off apache, which was competing for port 80 of course, and ran docker-compose up which caused the SSL certificate to be generated (for which it must be running on port 80). Then I went into docker-compose.yml and "80:80" to "81:80" and "443:443" to "444:443" , did "docker-compose down" and then "up -d" again and lo and behold I could access loomio on port 444 and (after restarting apache) could access my other sites on 443! Happy days. I'm having an issue with email now though, which I'll start a new thread for. I attempting to debug now with the help of a more knowledgeable person, and will post any info that might help others in that thread.

@robertguthrie if I get through this I would like to compile what I've learnt into a troubleshooting guide - would you be interested in that being added to your repo?

Hi @naomir , totally appreciate your post, thanks for writing it.

I'll just add my reasoning first, then address your questions.

I've chosen the Docker path because it gives you a secure, full featured loomio install in the least number of steps. That is: You get SSL/HTTPS, inbound email, simple DNS settings, background jobs and crontab, redis and postgresql, and even a simple backup system.

Our crowdfunding campaign in 2014? promised a "one-click" install process - which is actually kind of impossible, but this is the closest I've been able to come to providing a simple to setup processs for hosting your own Loomio install.

Personally I find that docker keeps the level of complexity down.

If you're trying to run this alongside other services, or in a custom way, then it will get much less straightforward - that's just how it is. If you don't use Docker, then you lose the ability to easily update your system if I change a requirement. (like when I added redis to the stack 4 months ago, or when we moved from FAYE to actioncable last year).

I try to spend only a small amount of my time on the devops side of Loomio, becuase I want to spend as much time as possible writing good features and UX.

I think that running your own instance is always going to be something that requires a high level of server/linux/database experience, if you want to do it really well.. I've done my best to make it easy to get started, and also keep loomio.org running so people don't have to do this at all.

That said, I really like it when people such as yourself come along and actually use this work I've done. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is using it - because most people don't communicate with me... and we very rarely get any contributions, which I understand - because it is hard to contribute to a complex project.

I'd be happy to add/contribute to documentation about running your own production server. Have you seen the guide on setting up your own development environment? That covers quite a lot of this. (and may also need updating)

The docker guide does not work for a new blank server, because the command docker exec -ti loomio-db su - postgres -c 'createdb loomio_production' fails with Error: No such container: loomio-db
This is obvious, because no container is running at that time. I tried with the docker-compose up, but it leads to a complete mess I think. At the end I only get "500 Server Error" with no useful log information.

Ok, I'll run through a setup from blank again and update the guide. If I may ask, where do you plan to use Loomio?

I am in the same situation. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to do this :) Personally, I plan to use Loomio for a project I am helping organize development for named Music Stash.

We would like to use it for the austrian burningman community. :heart:

Ok @klauskobald and @brendanbutler please try this:

docker-compose up -d db
docker exec -ti loomio-db su - postgres -c 'createdb loomio_production'
docker-compose run app rake db:setup


@robertguthrie
I've tested with these new commands in replace of database integration; it worked flawlessly up until the docker-compose up -d after the Cron tab is edited. No errors bringing it up, until the very last container (let's encrypt):

And I get 502 bad gateway errors when browsing to the domain

It can take upto 5 minutes for the app to boot. You will see bad gateway until then. I'll add that to the readme. You can see it boot with the logs command.

Alright thanks so much, I'll update you in a few minutes then :)Do I need to worry about that letsencrypt error?