🔐 Universal HTTPS Backend

This repository is a minimalistic setup for running services with Docker Compose behind Traefik and autogenerated https certificates.

Let's say, you have the API service (e.g. NodeJS app), React app for frontend and would like to make it available via https://api.your-domain.com and https://dashboard.your-domain.com, then you are at the right place!

It includes the collection of docker-compose files and bash scripts that automate and simplify startup of your project, by taking care of some DevOps routine. List with available services can be found at Services section.

HTTPS Backend is a part of starters.dev collection.

Getting Started

Quickstart

1. Connect to your remote server

> ssh root@IP_ADDRESS

Hint: you can use a cloud computing providers such as DigitalOcean.

2. Clone this repo

> git clone https://github.com/starters-dev/https-backend backend
> cd backend

3. Run setup script and fill in env variables

> bash setup.sh
> nano .env

Check Environment variables section for more information.

4. Get a service repo

Our example is based on backend.starters.dev-website repo.

> git clone https://github.com/starters-dev/backend.starters.dev-website services/frontend

5. Build and run

> bash build.sh

It will setup everything, including https certificates, and will start Docker Compose services in the background.

Service creation

If you'd like to add your own service, then you should follow the steps below to keep the same structure:

1. Add service's Docker Compose file services/docker-compose.YOUR_SERVICE.yml.

2. (optional) Add service's folder services/YOUR_SERVICE. For example, if you are going to store some data or configuration files only related to that service.

3. (optional) Add service's script file services/YOUR_SERVICE/index.sh. For example, if you need to craete some folders in advance on setup step.

Service deletion

If you don't need a service, you can easily delete it by running:

> bash run/sdel.sh SERVICE_NAME

For example, if you don't need postgresql service, you will run bash run/sdel.sh postgresql and it will delete related files.

Structure

The folder structure is pretty simple but lets you reuse and write less boilerplate code.

• docker-compose.main.yml - main Docker Compose file with DNS challence, ACME and ports configuration.
• build.sh - build script that runs setup script with all scripts under run/services folder and builds and runs Docker images in background.
• .env - list of environment variables.
• run/ - folder with general bash scripts.
• services/ - folder with Docker services files. For example, if you have redis service, then you would have services/docker-compose.redis.yml with specific configuration for redis service. Or if your service is a frontend app, then you'll need to clone it to services/frontend/ and create services/docker-compose.frontend.yml.
• services/your-service/ - folder with your service, for ex. frontend.

What's inside

The setup uses Traefik, the cloud native application proxy, to simplify the process of getting https certificates and the way to describe services.

You can always delete existing (if you don't need them) or add your own services, just make sure to apply necessary changes.

Services

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PostgreSQL - open source object-relational database known for reliability and data integrity.

It uses Bitnami Docker image.

Env variables

• POSTGRESQL_USERNAME - username for PostgreSQL.
• POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD - password for PostgreSQL.
• POSTGRESQL_DATABASE - name of the database in PostgreSQL.

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Redis - open source, in-memory data store used by millions of developers as a database, cache, streaming engine, and message broker.

It uses Bitnami Docker image.

Env variables

• REDIS_PASSWORD - password for Redis.
• REDIS_DISABLE_COMMANDS - commands disabled from execution.

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Plausible - simple and privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative.

Official documentation.

Env variables

services/plausible/conf.env file:

• SECRET_KEY_BASE - secret key of your app. Can be generated by running openssl rand -base64 64 | tr -d '\n' ; echo.
• BASE_URL - base url where this instance is accessible, including the scheme (eg. http:// or https://), the domain name, and optionally a port.
• ADMIN_USER_EMAIL - admin email.
• ADMIN_USER_NAME - admin usenamename.
• ADMIN_USER_PWD - admin password.

Troubleshooting

• [ClickHouse] Database plausible_events_db doesn't exist. If you encounter this issue, check out this comment for the solution.

If you use Plausible in production, consider sponsoring them.

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Frontend app - simple Remix (React) app.

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Env variables

Current setup requires you to fill in .env file with variables that are used in services.

• DOMAIN_NAME - your registered domain.
• DO_AUTH_TOKEN - Digital Ocean token that is going to be used for DNS challenge and generating https certificates. It's required by Traefik and they provide other options, you can find them here. If you'd like to continue with Digital Ocean, then you can create a token in Dashboard -> API -> Tokens/Keys.
• ACME_EMAIL - email that is used for Let's Encrypt and https certificates.
• GITHUB_TOKEN - (optional) github token for private repos.

Enhancements

There are still some things I would like to add to the backend setup:

• PostgreSQL - open source object-relational database known for reliability and data integrity.
• Redis - open source, in-memory data store used by millions of developers as a database, cache, streaming engine, and message broker.
• Plausible - simple and privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative.
• GlitchTip - open source reimplementation of Sentry error tracking platform.
• Cal.com - scheduling infrastructure for absolutely everyone. Github repo.
• Mattermost - open source platform for developer collaboration. Github repo.
• Taiga - open source, self-hosted project management tool. Github repo.
• Focalboard - open source, self-hosted alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana. Github repo.
• Github actions or similar technique

Why?

While developing API and similar services for mobile apps, you can not really access localhost (on mobile device) if, let's say, you have running Docker image on you local machine. Also you have to make only https requests from mobile app.

Another reason was to have PostgreSQL and Redis always running in the cloud but for cheap cost. You can run both of them easily on the $6 server.

Note

This backend setup is a great fit if you just want to start writing business logic without messing with DevOps and spending a few days on that what's already has been done for you. It can be used for development and early production stages (of course, depends on your project), however, it's strongly recommended to have services like PostgreSQL, Redis, and similar to be seperated and independent on production stage.