Install Portainer to Manage Containers - Nginx, MySQL, WordPress

Portainer is a lightweight management UI which allows you to easily manage your different Docker
environments (Docker hosts or Swarm clusters). It is meant to be as simple to deploy as it is to use. It consists of a single container that can run on any Docker engine (can be deployed as Linux container or a Windows native container). Portainer allows you to manage your Docker containers, images, volumes, networks and more !

1. Installation in CentOS / Ubuntu
1.1 CentOS 7/Debian 9

Here is an easiest way to install docker into your CentOS / Debian system. It is just one command:

sudo -i

yum -y update

curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh

Start docker service and enable it when system started

systemctl start docker.service

systemctl enable docker.service

create a volume dedicated for Portainer's data storage:

docker volume create portainer_data

use docker command to run Portainer container:

docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name portainer --restart always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer

1.2 Ubuntu
System update

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install docker into Ubuntu:

sudo apt install docker.io -y

Start docker service and enable it when system started

sudo -i

systemctl start docker
systemctl enable docker

docker version

create a volume dedicated for Portainer's data storage:

docker volume create portainer_data

use docker command to run Portainer container:

docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name portainer --restart always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer

docker ps

2. Log into Portainer Web Gui
Use your browser to access URL http://<public ip of your linuxserver>:9000
First time, it will ask you to set up admin user's password.

Since portainer is deployed on local machine and we are managing it from local, we will choose local to connect.

Now it is Portainer's home page.

As you can see from the following screenshot, Portainer container has been deployed.

3. Deploy WordPress App Container

3.1 Deploy Nginx

Click button "+Add container" and enter following information for Nginx container.

You can use your browser to access your virtual machine's public ip to confirm nginx is runing.

3.2 Deploy MySQL DB - MariaDB

There are two environment variables need to be added in.

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
MYSQL_DATABASE

Also do not forget to change Restart policy to always to make sure your container survive system reboot.

If you did not put MYSQL_DATABASE environment variable in, you can log in container then use following command to create it:

mysql -u root -p
create database wordpress;

3.3 Deploy WordPress

Or You can deploy WordPress Stack to add WordPress and MySql at the same time, which is the way I prefer.

3.4 Configure Nginx Reverse Proxy

apt -y update
apt -y install nano

create a wordperss Nginx configuration file:

nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/wordpress.conf

copy following configuration into the file：(make sure to change port 80, server_name and proxy_pass to your own configuration)

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  www.51sec.org 51sec.org;

location / {
    proxy_pass       http://3.45.23.194:20000;
    proxy_redirect             off;
    proxy_http_version         1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade   $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host      $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

Once saved the conf file, restart nginx service to apply the new configuration.

/etc/init.d/nginx restart

There is a bug for command /etc/init.d/nginx restart. The restarting nginx status will not change although restarting procedure has been completed.

3.5 Configure Nginx to act as a load balancer
If you have multiple sites, you can configure Nginx to load balance between multiple servers.
There are two files you will need to change:

root@f0e9bd28fe02:/# cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
user  nginx;
worker_processes  1;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;
pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;


events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


http {  upstream mysec {
ip_hash;
    server 3.81.70.239:30000 weight=3;
    server 34.73.78.142:80 weight=2;
  }

    include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    #tcp_nopush     on;

    keepalive_timeout  65;

    #gzip  on;

    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}
root@f0e9bd28fe02:/#

root@f0e9bd28fe02:/# cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/wordpress.conf
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  www.51sec.org;

location / {
    proxy_pass       http://mysec;
    proxy_redirect             off;
    proxy_http_version         1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade   $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host      $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
}
}
root@f0e9bd28fe02:/#

Another simple Nginx Load Balance Configuration

http {
  upstream project1 {
    server 127.0.0.1:8000 weight=3;
    server 127.0.0.1:8001 weitht=2;
    server 127.0.0.1:8002;
  }

  server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.51sec.org;
    location / {
      proxy_pass http://project1;
    }
  }
}

Notes:

Nginx Load Balancer Configuration for a backup server
ip_hash parameter is not working with backup command. In following configuration, server 3.81.70.239 will not be hit until server 34.73.78.142 is unavailable.
Ip_hash balancer does not support backup servers and weight.

root@f0e9bd28fe02:/# cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
.....

http {  upstream mysec {
##ip_hash;
##  server 3.81.70.239:30000 weight=3;
    server 34.73.78.142:80 weight=2;
    server 3.81.70.239:30000 backup  }

.....

3.6 Configure Nginx for Portainer.51sec.org

keep default.conf as same and create a new one, portainer.conf

root@f0e9bd28fe02:/# cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/portainer.conf
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  portainer.51sec.org;

location / {
    proxy_pass       http://13.45.23.194:9000;
    proxy_redirect             off;
    proxy_http_version         1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade   $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host      $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

You will have to restart nginx service to take this change into effect: