Portainer is an open-source container orchestration tool. We use portainer to manage all of our docker containers. It basically takes everything you can do with docker and adds a UI. Of course, this means you can do everything we do without portainer but it makes things much more complicated and easier to lose track of if not documented properly. Our command-line friends would disagree with this statement and tell you “JuSt DoN't FoRgEt AnYtHiNg” or “WrItE BeTtEr DoCuMeNtAtIoN”. Non-Sense, especially for a beginner. There are multiple options for container orchestration tools that provide a UI but portainer is the best of them all. You can find more information regarding Portainer from the official links below:
The process for installing Portainer depends on the type of system you are running (it should be Linux for production) and if you are using docker swarm or not. It is important to note that Docker should already be installed and running before attempting to install Portainer. We have not customized or changed portainer in any way from the default installation instructions (besides moving the data to different hosts & changing the image used) so we will not be showing you how to install Portainer here. Instead, you will need to follow this link:
There are 3 options at the current time of writing, Docker Standalone (1 host), Docker Swarm (Multiple docker hosts), and Kubernetes. True Freedom Tech does not use Kubernetes as of now and we do not offer any support for it. For most beginners, Docker Standalone is the correct option.
After selecting between those 3 options you will see another 3 options, Installing on Linux, WSL / Docker Desktop, and Windows Container Service. If you have docker desktop installed on a windows machine then follow the directions for that option. We do not recommend using windows for production but it does work fairly well (All the documentation for all of our services was created on a windows docker desktop standalone server).
After installing Portainer it should be available at <your-pc's-iP-address>:9000 (Ex. 192.168.1.1:9000). If it is not then something is wrong!
(Our premium members can open a support ticket for assistance Here!)
**Note: This is VERY important. Make sure to NEVER delete the portainer data volume as it will break everything. It is important to have this data backed up in some way. We keep a backup of all the docker stacks we have, along with their environmental variables, and stack names.
**Note: We have had issues trying to use portainer with NFS volumes, and have opted to keep the volume local. This is also a vulnerability in our system as we do not create backups on our compute nodes. (usually, there would be no need, as our storage servers contain all our data and our backups).
***Note: Most of our HUGE server breaking problems and errors have come from user errors regarding portainer, meaning a human broke something in 0.2 seconds and it costs hours of time to fix. Be VERY careful and do not get into a rush when working on Portainer or you will certainly cost yourself.
If you are using a raspberry pi on ubuntu 21.10 you may need to add this dependency apt install linux-modules-extra-raspi