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Starting Latitude with Docker Compose

Latitude can be easily deployed in a single machine using Docker Compose, which will set up all required services including the web interface, API gateway, workers, websockets, database, and Redis.

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Prerequisites

  • Docker and Docker Compose installed on your system
  • A copy of the .env configuration file

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Configuration

  1. First, create your environment configuration by copying the example file:
cp .env.example .env
  1. For proper functioning of the project, you need to create a Docker network named web. This network is used for communication between the various services, including Traefik.

You can create the network using the following command:

docker network create web

Make sure this network is created before running the containers with docker compose.

  1. Configure your .env file with your production settings. The following key configurations are available:

  • Traefik Settings:

    • TRAEFIK_ACME_EMAIL: Email address used for Let’s Encrypt ACME registration. Required for issuing and renewing SSL certificates. It is also used to receive expiration and renewal notifications.
    • TRAEFIK_ADMIN_PASS: Passwords must be hashed using MD5, SHA1, or BCrypt. Read more: https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/middlewares/http/basicauth/ Example command to generate a password for user admin: 
      echo $(htpasswd -nb admin password) | sed -e s/\\$/\\$\\$/g

  • Database Settings:

    • POSTGRES_USER and POSTGRES_PASSWORD: Database credentials
    • DATABASE_URL: PostgreSQL connection string

  • Redis Settings:

    • QUEUE_PORT and QUEUE_HOST: Redis queue configuration
    • CACHE_PORT and CACHE_HOST: Redis cache configuration

  • Network Settings:

    • APP_DOMAIN: Your domain (e.g., latitude.so)
    • APP_URL: Full URL to your application
    • GATEWAY_HOSTNAME: API gateway hostname
    • GATEWAY_SSL: Enable/disable SSL

  • Email Configuration:

    • MAILGUN_EMAIL_DOMAIN: Email domain for sending emails
    • FROM_MAILER_EMAIL: Sender email address
    • MAILGUN_MAILER_API_KEY: Mailgun API key (optional)
    • DISABLE_EMAIL_AUTHENTICATION: Disable email authentication (optional, default: false)

  • Storage Configuration:

    • DRIVE_DISK: Choose between local or s3 for file storage
    • AWS S3 credentials (if using S3 storage)

  • Optional Features:

    • Sentry integration for error tracking
    • PostHog for analytics

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Starting the Services

  1. Start all services using Docker Compose:
docker compose up -d

This will start the following services from public Docker images stored in our GitHub Container Registry:

  • API Gateway (accessible via gateway.latitude.localhost)
  • Background workers
  • Migrations daemon that will run on startup and automatically apply database migrations
  • PostgreSQL database on port 5432
  • Redis on port 6379
  • Traefik (reverse proxy) on port 80
  • Web application (accessible via app.latitude.localhost)
  • WebSocket server (accessible via ws.latitude.localhost)

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Service URLs

Once running, you can access:

  • Main application: http://app.latitude.localhost
  • API Gateway: http://gateway.latitude.localhost
  • WebSocket server: http://ws.latitude.localhost
  • Traefik dashboard: http://localhost:8090

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Monitoring

You can monitor the services using standard Docker commands:

# View service logs
docker compose logs -f [service_name]

# Check service status
docker compose ps

# View resource usage
docker compose top

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Important Notes

  1. The services use Traefik as a reverse proxy, which automatically handles routing and service discovery.

  2. The database data is persisted using a Docker volume mounted at ./docker/pgdata.

  3. If you’re using local file storage, note that it requires additional configuration for multi-container setups, and S3 is recommended for production environments.

  4. Make sure docker/init-db.sh has execution permissions or otherwise the database container will not start appropiately.

  5. For a more robust production environment, make sure to:

    • Set strong passwords in your .env file
    • Configure proper SSL certificates
    • Use appropriate storage configuration (S3 recommended)
    • Set up proper monitoring and logging
    • We recommend using a container orchestration tool like k8s and handle env variables at runtime

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Building Your Own Images

We provide a custom docker profile for building your own images locally.

To build and run your local images, run the following command:

docker compose --profile local up --build