pyunramura/microw

The w stands for web!

This project's home is located at https://github.com/pyunramura/microw

Find this image on the Github container registry at pyunramura/microw

or in the Dockerhub registry at ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw.

About the project

This image is builds on top of the amazing Micro and ttyd projects.

The project has one simple aim; to provide a containerized webgui for editing text files of various types.

Background

I was searching for a simple and lightweight way to edit my traefik dynamic configuration without the need to ssh into the underlying server. Though I already knew of full IDEs like code-server and cloud9, for my use case they were too heavy and feature-rich for editing a couple of yaml or toml files. After I stumbled on the ttyd project I realized that it would be possible to put together a minimal docker image that would fulfill this task.

Features

• Minimal - No extra cruft. Only what you need to edit config files, text files, or even code if you're so inclined.
• Tiny - the image is less than 8Mb in size. Perfect as a sidecar image.
• Few dependencies - Just tini, ttyd, and micro on alpine linux. And thanks to the convenience of github-actions it's always up to date!
• Versatile - With the powerful Micro editor built in, it's easy to write code in a lightweight ncui with many of the creature comforts of a full IDE.
• Cross-compatible - Images for x86, x86_64, arm64/aarch64, and armhf/v7 are available.

How to use it

Example usage with docker

docker run --rm -p 7681:7681 --name microw ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw
or
docker run --rm -p 7681:7681 --name microw pyunramura/microw

Here the container is mapped to port 7681 on the host and 7681 inside the container.

Then access the newly created Micro buffer at http://localhost:7681/

Using a docker volume mapping to edit a local config file

docker run -p 7681:7681 -v local-dir/example-file.conf:/data/example-file.conf --name microw ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw

Then access the file in the webgui at http://localhost:7681/?arg=/data/example-file.conf

Where ?arg= is the argument you want passed on to Micro. You can also string arguments with an & between each one.

e.x. ?arg=/data/example-file.conf&arg=/data/another-file.conf

Note: More examples of Micro's configuration options are available here.

Mapping Microw's config directory to customize Microw's settings persistently

docker run -p 7681:7681 -v micro-config-dir:/config --name microw ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw

Now you can persist any changes you prefer in to micro's configuration settings, keybindings, or installed plugins.

Advanced usage with docker using "cmd"

docker run -p 7681:7681 --name microw ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw -t titleFixed=Microw -t fontSize=18 micro

Here the commands after ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw get passed to the tini init system, so if you'd prefer to log into the shell instead you could run ... ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw /sbin/login

Note: More examples of ttyd's configuration options are available here.

Example usage with docker-compose and traefik

/docker-compose.yml

---
version: '3.8'
services:
  traefik:
    # Docs: https://doc.traefik.io/traefik
    image: traefik
    container_name: traefik
    command:
      - --api.dashboard=true
      - --providers.docker=true
      - --providers.file=true
      - --providers.file.filename=/dynamic.yml
      - --entryPoints.web.address=:80
      - --entryPoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.to=websecure
      - --entryPoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.scheme=https
      - --entryPoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.permanent=true
      - --entryPoints.websecure.address=:443
      - --entrypoints.websecure.http.tls=true
      - --entrypoints.websecure.http.tls.certresolver=le
      - --certificatesresolvers.le.acme.email=youremail@yoursite.com
      - --certificatesresolvers.le.acme.httpschallenge=true
      - --certificatesresolvers.le.acme.storage=/acme.json
    networks:
      - traefik-public
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./dynamic-config.yml:/dynamic.yml
      - ./acme.json:/acme.json
      - ./.htpasswd:/.htpasswd
    labels:
      - traefik.http.routers.traefik.rule=Host(`traefik.yoursite.com`)
      - traefik.http.routers.traefik.service=api@internal
      - traefik.http.routers.traefik.middlewares=user-auth
      - traefik.http.middlewares.user-auth.basicauth.usersfile=/.htpasswd
  microw:
    # Docs: https://github.com/pyunramura/microw
    image: ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw:latest
    container_name: microw
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./dynamic-config.yml:/data/dynamic.yml
    networks:
      - traefik-public
    depends_on:
      - traefik
    labels:
      - traefik.routers.microw.rule=Host(`traefik-config.yoursite.com`)
      - traefik.http.routers.traefik.service=microw
      - traefik.http.routers.traefik.middlewares=user-auth
networks:
  traefik-public:

Here we've set up both traefik and microw in a configuration so that Traefik will provide an https endpoint and authentication to microw's web interface, and microw can then write to traefik's dynamic config file located at /dynamic.yml which are then loaded by traefik.

After running docker-compose up -d we can access the webgui at https://traefik-config.yoursite.com/?arg=/data/dynamic.yml.

Example usage with docker swarm and traefik

/docker-compose-swarm.yml

---
version: '3.8'
services:
  traefik:
    # Docs: https://doc.traefik.io/traefik
    image: traefik
    container_name: traefik
    command:
      - --api.dashboard=true
      - --providers.docker=true
      - --providers.file=true
      - --providers.file.filename=/dynamic.yml
      - --entryPoints.web.address=:80
      - --entryPoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.to=websecure
      - --entryPoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.scheme=https
      - --entryPoints.web.http.redirections.entryPoint.permanent=true
      - --entryPoints.websecure.address=:443
      - --entrypoints.websecure.http.tls=true
      - --entrypoints.websecure.http.tls.certresolver=le
      - --certificatesresolvers.le.acme.email=youremail@yoursite.com
      - --certificatesresolvers.le.acme.httpschallenge=true
      - --certificatesresolvers.le.acme.storage=/acme.json
    networks:
      - traefik-public
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./dynamic-config.yml:/dynamic.yml
      - ./acme.json:/acme.json
      - ./.htpasswd:/.htpasswd
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.role == manager
          - node.labels.traefik-public.traefik-certificates == true
          - node.labels.traefik-configs.traefik-dynamic == true
      labels:
        - traefik.http.routers.traefik.rule=Host(`traefik.yoursite.com`)
        - traefik.http.routers.traefik.service=api@internal
        - traefik.http.routers.traefik.middlewares=user-auth
        - traefik.http.middlewares.user-auth.basicauth.usersfile=/.htpasswd
  microw:
    # Docs: https://github.com/pyunramura/microw
    image: ghcr.io/pyunramura/microw:latest
    container_name: microw
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./dynamic-config.yml:/data/dynamic.yml
    networks:
      - traefik-public
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints:
          - node.labels.traefik-configs.traefik-dynamic == true
      labels:
        - traefik.routers.microw.rule=Host(`traefik-config.yoursite.com`)
        - traefik.http.routers.traefik.service=microw
        - traefik.http.routers.traefik.middlewares=user-auth
networks:
  traefik-public:

In this example we are setting up the same stack on docker with swarm mode. The only difference here are new deployment constraints causing traefik and microw to only run on a node which has traefik's configuration files. We can add this with docker node update --label-add traefik-configs.traefik-dynamic=true yournode.

As before after running docker stack deploy -c docker-compose-swarm.yml we can access the webgui at https://traefik-config.yoursite.com/?arg=/data/dynamic.yml.

Security considerations

Due to the nature of the micro-editor and how it's implemented here by default, anyone who has access to the web interface will have full access to the underlying filesystem of the container. Be sure to put proper safeguards in place in front of it. e.g. an authenticated reverse-proxy, and allow trusted users only.

Reach out

If have any issue with microw or the examples above please feel free to open a new issue, or if you would like to contribute to the project I would welcome a pull-request as well. And thank you for making it this far!

To Do

• Flags to harden intra-container security (puid? chroot? login?)

Updates

• 1.3.0 Update WORKDIR, package versions, and Alpine base image
• 1.2.0 Update CI tooling and package versions
• 1.1.0 Remove external deps. for Micro
• 1.0.2 Fix build pipeline
• 1.0.1 Updated README for container repos
• 1.0.0 Stable release
• 0.0.0 Init