Production Docker deployment for Mattermost

This project enables deployment of a Mattermost server in a multi-node production configuration using Docker.

Notes:

• The default Mattermost edition for this repo has changed from Team Edition to Enterprise Edition. Please see Choose Edition section.
• To install this Docker project on AWS Elastic Beanstalk please see AWS Elastic Beanstalk Guide.
• To run Mattermost on Kubernetes you can start with the manifest examples in the kubernetes folder
• To install Mattermost without Docker directly onto a Linux-based operating systems, please see Admin Guide.

Installation using Docker Compose

The following instructions deploy Mattermost in a production configuration using multi-node Docker Compose set up.

Requirements

• docker (version 1.12+)
• docker-compose (version 1.10.0+ to support Compose file version 3.0)

Choose Edition to Install

If you want to install Enterprise Edition, you can skip this section.

To install the team edition, change build: app to build: and uncomment out these lines in app: services block to make it look like below in docker-compose.yaml file:

app:
  build:
    context: app
    args:
      - edition=team

The app Dockerfile will read the edition build argument to install Team (edition = 'team') or Enterprise (edition != team) edition.

Database container

This repository offer a Docker image for the Mattermost database. It is a customized PostgreSQL image that you should configure with following environment variables :

• POSTGRES_USER: database username
• POSTGRES_PASSWORD: database password
• POSTGRES_DB: database name

It is possible to use your own PostgreSQL database, or even use MySQL. But you will need to ensure that Application container can connect to the database (see Application container)

AWS

If deploying to AWS, you could also set following variables to enable Wal-E backup to S3 :

• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: AWS access key
• AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: AWS secret
• WALE_S3_PREFIX: AWS s3 bucket name
• AWS_REGION: AWS region

All four environment variables are required. It will enable completed WAL segments sent to archive storage (S3). The base backup and clean up can be done through the following command:

# Base backup
docker exec mattermost-db su - postgres sh -c "/usr/bin/envdir /etc/wal-e.d/env /usr/bin/wal-e backup-push /var/lib/postgresql/data"
# Keep the most recent 7 base backups and remove the old ones
docker exec mattermost-db su - postgres sh -c "/usr/bin/envdir /etc/wal-e.d/env /usr/bin/wal-e delete --confirm retain 7"

Those tasks can be executed through a cron job or systemd timer.

Application container

Application container run the Mattermost application. You should configure it with following environment variables :

• MM_USERNAME: database username
• MM_PASSWORD: database password
• MM_DBNAME: database name

If your database use some custom host and port, it is also possible to configure them :

• DB_HOST: database host address
• DB_PORT_NUMBER: database port

If you use a Mattermost configuration file on a different location than the default one (/mattermost/config/config.json) :

• MM_CONFIG: configuration file location inside the container.

If you choose to use MySQL instead of PostgreSQL, you should set a different datasource and SQL driver :

• DB_PORT_NUMBER : 3306
• MM_SQLSETTINGS_DRIVERNAME : mysql
• MM_SQLSETTINGS_DATASOURCE : MM_USERNAME:MM_PASSWORD@tcp(DB_HOST:DB_PORT_NUMBER)/MM_DBNAME?charset=utf8mb4,utf8&readTimeout=30s&writeTimeout=30s Don't forget to replace all entries (beginning by MM_ and DB_) in MM_SQLSETTINGS_DATASOURCE with the real variables values.

If you want to push Mattermost application to Cloud Foundry, use a manifest.yml like this one (with external PostgreSQL service):

---
applications:
- name: mattermost
  docker:
    image: mattermost/mattermost-prod-app
  instances: 1
  memory: 1G
  disk_quota: 256M
  env:
    DB_HOST: database host address
    DB_PORT_NUMBER: database port
    MM_DBNAME: database name
    MM_USERNAME: database username
    MM_PASSWORD: database password

Web server container

This image is optional, you should not use it when you have your own reverse-proxy. It is a simple front Web server for the Mattermost app container. If you use the provided docker-compose.yml file, you don't have to configure anything. But if your application container is reachable on custom host and/or port (eg. if you use a container provider), you should add those two environment variables :

• APP_HOST: application host address
• APP_PORT_NUMBER: application HTTP port

If you plan to upload large files to your Mattermost instance, Nginx will need to write some temporary files. In that case, the read_only: true option on the web container should be removed from your docker-compose.yml file.

Install with SSL certificate

Put your SSL certificate as ./volumes/web/cert/cert.pem and the private key that has no password as ./volumes/web/cert/key-no-password.pem. If you don't have them you may generate a self-signed SSL certificate.

Starting/Stopping Docker

Start

If you are running docker with non root user, make sure the UID and GID in app/Dockerfile are the same as your current UID/GID

mkdir -p ./volumes/app/mattermost/{data,logs,config,plugins}
chown -R 2000:2000 ./volumes/app/mattermost/
docker-compose start

Stop

docker-compose stop

Removing Docker

Remove the containers

docker-compose stop && docker-compose rm

Remove the data and settings of your Mattermost instance

sudo rm -rf volumes

Update Mattermost to latest version

First, shutdown your containers to back up your data.

docker-compose down

Back up your mounted volumes to save your data. If you use the default docker-compose.yml file proposed on this repository, your data is on ./volumes/ folder.

Then run the following commands.

git pull
docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d

Your Docker image should now be on the latest Mattermost version.

Upgrading Mattermost to 4.9+

Docker images for 4.9.0 release introduce some important changes from PR #241 to improve production use of Mattermost with Docker. There are 2 important changes for existing installations

One important change is that we don't use root user by default to run the Mattermost application. So, as explained on the README, if you use host mounted volume you have to be sure that files on your host server have the correct UID/GID (by default those values are 2000). In practice, you should just run following commands :

mkdir -p ./volumes/app/mattermost/{data,logs,config,plugins}
chown -R 2000:2000 ./volumes/app/mattermost/

The second important change is the port used by Mattermost application container. The default port is now 8000, and existing installations that use port 80 will not work without a little configuration change. You have to open your Mattermost configuration file (./volumes/app/mattermost/config/config.json by default) and change the key ServiceSettings.ListenAddress to :8000. Also if you use your own web-server/reverse-proxy you need to change its configuration to reach port 8000 of the Mattermost container.

Upgrading to Team Edition 3.0.x from 2.x

You need to migrate your database before upgrading Mattermost to 3.0.x from 2.x. Run these commands in the latest mattermost-docker directory.

docker-compose rm -f app
docker-compose build app
docker-compose run app -upgrade_db_30
docker-compose up -d

See the offical Upgrade Guide for more details.

Installation using Docker Swarm Mode

The following instructions deploy Mattermost in a production configuration using docker swarm mode on one node. Running containerized applications on multi-node swarms involves specific data portability and replication handling that are not covered here.

Requirements

• docker (1.12.0+)

Swarm Mode Installation

First, create mattermost directory structure on the docker hosts:

mkdir -p /var/lib/mattermost/{cert,config,data,logs,plugins}

Then, fire up the stack in your swarm:

docker stack deploy -c contrib/swarm/docker-stack.yml mattermost

Known Issues

• Do not modify the Listen Address in Service Settings.
• Rarely app container fails to start because of "connection refused" to database. Workaround: Restart the container.

More information

If you want to know how to use docker-compose, see the overview page.

For the server configurations, see prod-ubuntu.rst of Mattermost.