End Users Out In The World

# End Users Out In The World

In this article, we will guide you through setting up a self-hosted infrastructure for your applications, focusing on creating an efficient and automated homelab environment using popular open-source tools. This will empower you as a DevOps engineer to manage your own applications, giving you greater control over your digital ecosystem.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, ensure you have the following prerequisites installed:

1. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or later: This article is based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. If you are using a different Linux distribution, adjust the commands accordingly.

2. Docker CE v5.0.8+: Install Docker with the following command:

   apt-get update && apt-get install docker-ce=5.0.8 -y
   

3. Docker Compose v1.27.4+: Install Docker Compose with the following command:

   curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.27.4/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
   chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
   

Setting Up Your Homelab

1. Create a new directory for your project:

   mkdir my-homelab && cd my-homelab
   

2. Create a Docker Compose configuration file:

   touch docker-compose.yml
   

3. Configure the Docker Compose file:

   In this example, we will create a simple web application using Nginx as a reverse proxy and PostgreSQL as the database. Here is the docker-compose.yml configuration:

   version: "3"
   
   services:
     app:
       build: .
       ports:
         - "80:80"
       depends_on:
         - db
   
     db:
       image: postgres:latest
       environment:
         POSTGRES_USER: myuser
         POSTGRES_PASSWORD: mypassword
         POSTGRES_DB: mydb
   

   This configuration will build your application in the current directory (.), map port 80 on your host machine to port 80 inside the container, and create a PostgreSQL service with the specified environment variables.

4. Build your application:

   To make your application ready for deployment, create a Dockerfile in the root directory of your project:

   FROM node:latest as build
   
   # Install dependencies
   WORKDIR /app
   COPY package*.json ./
   RUN npm install
   COPY . .
   RUN npm run build
   
   # Create runtime environment
   FROM node:latest
   WORKDIR /app
   COPY --from=build /app .
   EXPOSE 80
   CMD [ "npm", "start" ]
   

   Replace node with the appropriate base image for your application.

5. Deploy your homelab:

   Start your services using Docker Compose:

   docker-compose up -d
   

Troubleshooting

• Ensure that you have the required prerequisites installed and versions are compatible with the commands used in this tutorial.
• Verify that your Dockerfile is correct, and the specified base image is available on Docker Hub or another container registry.

Conclusion

By setting up a self-hosted homelab, you can gain valuable experience managing your own applications while leveraging popular open-source tools. This will further expand your DevOps skillset and allow for greater control over your digital ecosystem. Keep exploring and automating!