🌐 Traefik Remote Deployment Setup

A template for deploying applications on a remote server using Traefik, Docker, Docker Compose, and DigitalOcean. Provides automatic HTTPS, routing, PostgreSQL, and optional frontend hosting.

🧰 Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose
	Reverse proxy, HTTPS, routing
	Containerization
	Hosting
	Database
	Optional frontend hosting

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🚀 What This Template Gives You

✔ Fully functional reverse proxy ✔ Automatic SSL certificates (Let’s Encrypt) ✔ Traefik dashboard with password protection ✔ Docker-based backend + database ✔ Optional frontend deployment (React/Vue/etc.) ✔ Works on any DigitalOcean Docker Droplet ✔ Clean environment variable setup ✔ Simple debugging instructions

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📌 Requirements

• DigitalOcean account

• Docker Droplet (from Marketplace)

• Docker Hub account

• A domain name

• Domain pointing to DigitalOcean nameservers

• Wildcard DNS record:

  *.yourdomain.com
  

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🛠️ Setup Guide (Simplified)

1️⃣ Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/tysker/traefik_setup_remote.git

(Optional cleanup: remove .git, rename folder, init new repo.)

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2️⃣ Generate DigitalOcean token

Create one here: https://cloud.digitalocean.com/account/api/tokens

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3️⃣ Install apache2-utils (for dashboard login)

sudo apt-get install apache2-utils

Generate hashed credentials:

echo $(htpasswd -nb <username> <password>) | sed -e s/\\$/\\$\\$/g

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4️⃣ Set Traefik certificate file permissions

chmod 600 ./acme
chmod 600 ./acme/acme.json

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5️⃣ Create .env

PROVIDER=digitalocean
EMAIL=<your_email>
DO_AUTH_TOKEN=<your_digitalocean_token>

TRAFIK_DOMAIN=traefik.<your_domain>
DASHBOARD_AUTH=<htpasswd_output>

API_DOMAIN=api.<your_domain>

POSTGRES_USER=<user>
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=<pw>

REPO_USER=<dockerhub_username>
REPO_PASS=<dockerhub_password>

(Plus optional API settings.)

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▶️ Usage

Start:

docker-compose up -d

Stop:

docker-compose down

Traefik dashboard:

https://traefik.<your_domain>

API:

https://api.<your_domain>/api

Reset DB:

docker-compose down -v
sudo rm -rf ./data

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🧪 Frontend Deployment (Optional)

(Using Nginx + multi-stage Docker build)

Add nginx.conf + Dockerfile (as provided in earlier message) to your frontend root.

Push your image to Docker Hub and update docker-compose.yml.

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🗄️ Debugging Checklist

• docker ps -a — check running containers

• docker-compose config — verify env vars

• docker logs <container> — inspect logs

• Check wildcard DNS record

• Check DigitalOcean DNS nameservers

• chmod 600 acme.json is required

• Run without -d to see live logs:

  docker-compose up

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🖥️ ASCII Architecture Diagram

                          ┌───────────────────────────┐
                          │      Client Browser       │
                          │   https://api.domain.com  │
                          └──────────────┬────────────┘
                                         │
                                         ▼
                          ┌───────────────────────────┐
                          │         Traefik           │
                          │  - Reverse Proxy          │
                          │  - Let's Encrypt TLS      │
                          │  - Routing / Middleware   │
                          └───────┬─────────┬────────┘
                                  │         │
                                  │         │
                     ┌────────────▼─┐   ┌───▼────────────────┐
                     │   Backend     │   │   Traefik Dashboard │
                     │  (REST API)   │   │  traefik.domain.com │
                     └──────┬────────┘   └─────────┬──────────┘
                            │                      │
                            │                      │
                     ┌──────▼────────┐             │
                     │  PostgreSQL    │             │
                     │   Database     │             │
                     └───────────────┘             │
                                                   │
                                   (optional)      │
                     ┌─────────────────────────────▼─┐
                     │           Frontend             │
                     │    (React/Vue via Nginx)       │
                     │  https://app.domain.com        │
                     └────────────────────────────────┘