Containerizing VM Environment with Docker - Nginx-Proxy-Manager Integration

[Matthew_K]

I am currently attempting to containerize my existing VM Environment by using Docker Containers for each service that is running on the VM. These services include phpBB, MediaWiki, phpMyAdmin, MariaDB, and others. I have successfully set up everything so that all the containers start correctly, and when I expose the necessary ports, the containers become accessible on the network.

Now, my objective is to create a front-end interface for these containers using Nginx, which will be configured to point to a secondary IP address, specifically 192.168.1.51 (please note that the main Unraid IP is 192.168.1.90).

Initially, I attempted to achieve this by installing Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official as a Docker plugin. This allowed me to get the secondary IP working properly, but unfortunately, I was unable to access the other services. To overcome this challenge, I came up with the idea of deploying Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official within the same Docker compose stack that runs all my other containers. Below, you can find the setup I have in mind:

                       -------------------     -----------------------
 -----------      .---| port:80- exposed  |---| host / lan can access |
| container |----<     -------------------     -----------------------
 -----------      '_   -------------------     -----------------------
                    '-| 172.20.0.0/24     |---| access to 172.20.0.2  |
                       -------------------     -----------------------

I'm unsure whether this approach will achieve the desired outcome or if I am unnecessarily complicating the process.

I am posting my docker-compose.yaml file. It should work out of the box for turning up a test environment.

version: "3"

volumes:
  dbdata:
  
networks:
  backend:
    driver: bridge
    ipam:
      config:
        - subnet: 172.20.0.0/24

services:
  nginx:
    container_name: Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official
    image: jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      # These ports are in format <host-port>:<container-port>
      - 192.168.1.51:80:80 # Public HTTP Port
      - 192.168.1.51:443:443 # Public HTTPS Port
      - 192.168.1.51:81:81 # Admin Web Port
      # Add any other Stream port you want to expose
      # - '21:21' # FTP
    # Uncomment the next line if you uncomment anything in the section
    # environment:
      # Uncomment this if you want to change the location of
      # the SQLite DB file within the container
      # DB_SQLITE_FILE: "/data/database.sqlite"
      # Uncomment this if IPv6 is not enabled on your host
      # DISABLE_IPV6: 'true'
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official/data:/data
      - /mnt/user/appdata/Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt
    network_mode: br0
    #networks:
    #  - backend

  database:
    container_name: mariadb
    image: mariadb:latest
    volumes:
     - /mnt/user/appdata/mariadb:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=123456
#    ports:
#      - "3306:3306"
    networks:
      - backend
      
  mediawiki:
    container_name: mediawiki
    image: mediawiki:latest
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/mediawiki/images:/var/www/html/images
      # After initial setup, download LocalSettings.php to the same directory as
      # this yaml and uncomment the following line and use compose to restart
      # the mediawiki service
      # - /mnt/user/appdata/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php:/var/www/html/LocalSettings.php
#    ports:
    #  - "8081:80"
    depends_on:
      - database
      - nginx
    environment:
      MW_DB_HOST: database
      MW_DB_NAME: mediawiki
      MW_DB_USER: root
      MW_DB_PASSWORD: 123456
    networks:
      - backend
      
  phpbb:
    container_name: phpbb
    image: bitnami/phpbb:latest
#    ports:
    #  - "8082:8080"
    depends_on:
      - database
      - nginx
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/phpbb:/bitnami/phpbb 
    environment:
      - PHPBB_DATABASE_USER=root
      - PHPBB_DATABASE_PASSWORD=123456
      - PHPBB_DATABASE_NAME=phpbb3
      - PHPBB_PASSWORD=123456
      - MYSQL_CLIENT_DATABASE_HOST=database
      - MYSQL_CLIENT_DATABASE_ROOT_PASSWORD=123456
      - MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_NAME=phpbb3
    networks:
      - backend

  phpmyadmin:
    container_name: phpmyadmin
    image: phpmyadmin:latest
    ports:
      - "8083:80"
    depends_on:
      - database
    environment:
      - "PMA_HOST=database"
      - "MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=123456"
    networks:
      - backend

 

[Matthew_K]

Looks like I have made progress! 😁 This will spin up a copy of jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest and a simple apache webserver. The Nginx will act as the front end gateway to the rest of containers. I think this is a bug in Unraid, but the Docker Containers will only show one network but there are two on the Nginx.

 

version: "3"

services:
  nginx:
    container_name: Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official
    image: jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest
    #ports:
      # These ports are in format <host-port>:<container-port>
    #  - 192.168.1.123:80:80 # Public HTTP Port
    #  - 192.168.1.123:443:443 # Public HTTPS Port
    #  - 192.168.1.123:81:81 # Admin Web Port
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official/data:/data
      - /mnt/user/appdata/Nginx-Proxy-Manager-Official/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt
    networks:
      frontend:
        ipv4_address: 192.168.1.123
      backend: # Connect the Nginx container to the backend network
        aliases:
          - nginx

  apache:
    image: httpd:latest
    networks:
      backend: # Connect the Apache container to the backend network
        aliases:
          - apache

networks:
  frontend:
    name: br0
    external: true
  backend:
    driver: bridge
    ipam:
      driver: default
      config:
        - subnet: 172.20.0.0/24  # Define the subnet for the backend network