Skip to content

BookStack in Docker

BookStack is a simple, self-hosted, easy-to-use platform for organising and storing information.

A friendly middle ground between heavyweights like MediaWiki or Confluence and Gollum, BookStack relies on a database backend (so searching and versioning is easy), but limits itself to a pre-defined, 3-tier structure (book, chapter, page). The result is a lightweight, approachable personal documentation stack, which includes search and Markdown editing.

BookStack Screenshot

I like to protect my public-facing web UIs with an oauth_proxy, ensuring that if an application bug (or a user misconfiguration) exposes the app to unplanned public scrutiny, I have a second layer of defense.

BookStack Requirements

Ingredients

Already deployed:

Related:

Preparation

Setup data locations

We'll need several directories to bind-mount into our container, so create them in /var/data/bookstack:

mkdir -p /var/data/bookstack/database-dump
mkdir -p /var/data/runtime/bookstack/db

Prepare BookStack environment

Create bookstack.env, and populate with the following variables. Set the oauth_proxy variables provided by your OAuth provider (if applicable.)

# For oauth-proxy (optional)
OAUTH2_PROXY_CLIENT_ID=
OAUTH2_PROXY_CLIENT_SECRET=
OAUTH2_PROXY_COOKIE_SECRET=

# For MariaDB/MySQL database
MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=true
MYSQL_DATABASE=bookstack
MYSQL_USER=bookstack
MYSQL_PASSWORD=secret

# Bookstack-specific variables
DB_HOST=bookstack_db:3306
DB_DATABASE=bookstack
DB_USERNAME=bookstack
DB_PASSWORD=secret

BookStack Docker Swarm config

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

Fast-track with premix! 🚀

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

🚀 Update: Premix now includes an ansible playbook, so that sponsors can deploy an entire stack + recipes, with a single ansible command! (more here)

version: '3'

services:

  db:
    image: mariadb:10
    env_file: /var/data/config/bookstack/bookstack.env
    networks:
      - internal
    volumes:
      - /var/data/runtime/bookstack/db:/var/lib/mysql

  app:
    image: solidnerd/bookstack
    env_file: /var/data/config/bookstack/bookstack.env
    networks:
      - internal
      - traefik_public
    deploy:
      labels:
        # traefik common
        - traefik.enable=true
        - traefik.docker.network=traefik_public

        # traefikv1
        - traefik.frontend.rule=Host:bookstack.example.com
        - traefik.port=4180     

        # traefikv2
        - "traefik.http.routers.bookstack.rule=Host(`bookstack.example.com`)"
        - "traefik.http.services.bookstack.loadbalancer.server.port=4180"
        - "traefik.enable=true"

        # Remove if you wish to access the URL directly
        - "traefik.http.routers.bookstack.middlewares=forward-auth@file"

  db-backup:
    image: mariadb:10
    env_file: /var/data/config/bookstack/bookstack.env
    volumes:
      - /var/data/bookstack/database-dump:/dump
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    entrypoint: |
      bash -c 'bash -s <<EOF
      trap "break;exit" SIGHUP SIGINT SIGTERM
      sleep 2m
      while /bin/true; do
        mysqldump -h db --all-databases | gzip -c > /dump/dump_\`date +%d-%m-%Y"_"%H_%M_%S\`.sql.gz
        (ls -t /dump/dump*.sql.gz|head -n $$BACKUP_NUM_KEEP;ls /dump/dump*.sql.gz)|sort|uniq -u|xargs rm -- {}
        sleep $$BACKUP_FREQUENCY
      done
      EOF'
    networks:
    - internal

networks:
  traefik_public:
    external: true
  internal:
    driver: overlay
    ipam:
      config:
        - subnet: 172.16.33.0/24

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 Bookstack stack

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

Log into your new instance at https://YOUR-FQDN, authenticate with oauth_proxy, and then login with username 'admin@admin.com' and password 'password'.

Chef's notes 📓


  1. If you wanted to expose the Bookstack UI directly, you could remove the traefik-forward-auth from the design. 

Tip your waiter (sponsor) 👏

Did you receive excellent service? Want to compliment the chef? (..and support development of current and future recipes!) Sponsor me on Github / Ko-Fi / Patreon, or see the contribute page for more (free or paid) ways to say thank you! 👏

Employ your chef (engage) 🤝

Is this too much of a geeky PITA? Do you just want results, stat? I do this for a living - I'm a full-time Kubernetes contractor, providing consulting and engineering expertise to businesses needing short-term, short-notice support in the cloud-native space, including AWS/Azure/GKE, Kubernetes, CI/CD and automation.

Learn more about working with me here.

Flirt with waiter (subscribe) 💌

Want to know now when this recipe gets updated, or when future recipes are added? Subscribe to the RSS feed, or leave your email address below, and we'll keep you updated.

Your comments? 💬