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OwnTracks

OwnTracks allows you to keep track of your own location. You can build your private location diary or share it with your family and friends. OwnTracks is open-source and uses open protocols for communication so you can be sure your data stays secure and private.

OwnTracks Screenshot

Using a smartphone app, OwnTracks allows you to collect and analyse your own location data without sharing this data with a cloud provider (i.e. Apple, Google). Potential use cases are:

  • Sharing family locations without relying on Apple Find-My-friends
  • Performing automated actions in HomeAssistant when you arrive/leave home

Ingredients

  1. Docker swarm cluster with persistent shared storage
  2. Traefik configured per design
  3. DNS entry for the hostname you intend to use, pointed to your keepalived IP

Preparation

Setup data locations

We'll need a directory so store OwnTracks' data , so create /var/data/owntracks:

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mkdir /var/data/owntracks

Prepare environment

Create owntracks.env, and populate with the following variables

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OAUTH2_PROXY_CLIENT_ID=
OAUTH2_PROXY_CLIENT_SECRET=
OAUTH2_PROXY_COOKIE_SECRET=

OTR_USER=recorder
OTR_PASSWD=yourpassword
MQTTHOSTNAME=owntracks.example.com
HOSTLIST=owntracks.example.com

Setup Docker Swarm

Create a docker swarm config file in docker-compose syntax (v3), something like this:

Tip

I share (with my patreon patrons) a private "premix" git repository, which includes necessary docker-compose and env files for all published recipes. This means that patrons can launch any recipe with just a git pull and a docker stack deploy 👍

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version: "3.0"

services:
    owntracks-app:
      image: funkypenguin/owntracks
      env_file : /var/data/config/owntracks/owntracks.env
      volumes:
        - /var/data/owntracks:/owntracks
      networks:
        - internal
      ports:
        - 1883:1883
        - 8883:8883
        - 8083:8083

    owntracks-proxy:
      image: a5huynh/oauth2_proxy
      env_file : /var/data/config/owntracks/owntracks.env
      networks:
        - internal
        - traefik_public
      deploy:
        labels:
              - traefik.frontend.rule=Host:owntracks.example.com
          - traefik.docker.network=traefik_public
          - traefik.port=4180
      volumes:
        - /var/data/config/owntracks/authenticated-emails.txt:/authenticated-emails.txt
      command: |
        -cookie-secure=false
        -upstream=http://owntracks-app:8083
        -redirect-url=https://owntracks.example.com
        -http-address=http://0.0.0.0:4180
        -email-domain=example.com
        -provider=github
        -authenticated-emails-file=/authenticated-emails.txt

networks:
  traefik_public:
    external: true
  internal:
    driver: overlay
    ipam:
      config:
        - subnet: 172.16.15.0/24

Note

Setup unique static subnets for every stack you deploy. This avoids IP/gateway conflicts which can otherwise occur when you're creating/removing stacks a lot. See my list here.

Serving

Launch OwnTracks stack

Launch the OwnTracks stack by running docker stack deploy owntracks -c <path -to-docker-compose.yml>

Log into your new instance at https://YOUR-FQDN, with user "root" and the password you specified in gitlab.env.

Chef's Notes 📓

  1. If you wanted to expose the OwnTracks Web UI directly, you could remove the oauth2_proxy from the design, and move the traefik-related labels directly to the wekan container. You'd also need to add the traefik network to the owntracks container.
  2. I'm using my own image rather than owntracks/recorderd, because of a potentially swarm-breaking bug I found in the official container. If this gets resolved (or if I was mistaken) I'll update the recipe accordingly.
  3. By default, you'll get a fully accessible, unprotected MQTT broker. This may not be suitable for public exposure, so you'll want to look into securing mosquitto with TLS and ACLs.

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