Run Fluxer with Docker Compose

Use this page if your platform runs compose stacks for you, such as Portainer, TrueNAS or Unraid, and you can’t run rexctl on the machine. When you can run rexctl, install with rexctl instead, because it does all of this for you.

Get the files

Every release comes with a compose bundle. Download the latest one into an empty folder and unpack it.

curl -fsSL https://fluxer.dev/compose/latest -o fluxer-compose.tar.gz
tar -xzf fluxer-compose.tar.gz
cp .env.example .env

The bundle has docker-compose.yml with every Fluxer image pinned to the release, the Caddyfile, a few optional compose files and .env.example. The bundle for each version is also on its release on GitHub.

Fill in .env

Set FLUXER_DOMAIN to your instance’s domain, such as chat.example.com. Then run these commands in the folder to fill in the secrets.

for key in POSTGRES_PASSWORD MEILI_MASTER_KEY FLUXER_S3_SECRET_KEY FLUXER_SUDO_MODE_SECRET \
  FLUXER_CONNECTION_INITIATION_SECRET FLUXER_PROFILE_PSEUDONYM_SECRET FLUXER_GATEWAY_RPC_AUTH_TOKEN \
  FLUXER_ERLANG_COOKIE FLUXER_MEDIA_PROXY_SECRET_KEY FLUXER_ADMIN_SECRET_KEY_BASE \
  FLUXER_ADMIN_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET LIVEKIT_API_SECRET; do
  sed -i "s|^$key=.*|$key=$(openssl rand -hex 32)|" .env
done
sed -i "s|^FLUXER_SETUP_TOKEN=.*|FLUXER_SETUP_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 16)|" .env
sed -i "s|^FLUXER_MEDIA_PROXY_UPLOAD_RELAY_SECRET_BASE64=.*|FLUXER_MEDIA_PROXY_UPLOAD_RELAY_SECRET_BASE64=$(openssl rand -base64 32)|" .env
openssl ecparam -name prime256v1 -genkey -noout -out vapid.pem
sed -i "s|^FLUXER_VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY=.*|FLUXER_VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY=$(openssl ec -in vapid.pem -pubout -outform DER 2>/dev/null | tail -c 65 | base64 | tr '/+' '_-' | tr -d '=\n')|" .env
sed -i "s|^FLUXER_VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY=.*|FLUXER_VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY=$(openssl ec -in vapid.pem -outform DER 2>/dev/null | tail -c +8 | head -c 32 | base64 | tr '/+' '_-' | tr -d '=\n')|" .env
rm vapid.pem

Keep a copy of .env somewhere safe. The database, search, storage, voice and push keys can’t change once Fluxer has started, because your data depends on them. If your platform asks for environment values instead of a .env file, paste the lines from .env there.

Start it

Open TCP ports 80, 443 and 7881 and UDP ports 443 and 7882, the same as for a rexctl install. Then start Fluxer.

docker compose up -d

Fluxer serves your domain over HTTPS and gets its own certificate. If another web server already uses ports 80 and 443, add these two lines to .env before you start, and point your proxy at 127.0.0.1:8080 as described in Put Fluxer behind your own proxy.

COMPOSE_FILE=docker-compose.yml:docker-compose.proxy.yml
FLUXER_EDGE_BIND=127.0.0.1:8080

When every service is healthy, open your domain in a browser and enter the FLUXER_SETUP_TOKEN from .env to create your admin account.

Upgrade

Download the new bundle into the same folder and unpack it, which replaces every file except .env. If the new .env.example has a key your .env doesn’t have yet, add it, then run docker compose up -d.

Back up the Docker volumes yourself before you upgrade, because rexctl backup isn’t available without rexctl.

Switch to rexctl later

If you can run rexctl on the machine later, rexctl takeover --dir <folder> hands this instance to rexctl with its data and secrets as they are.