Lost on docker/portainer installation

Configuration/Setup
1

100% sure I am doing something wrong.
the compose:

services:
Bluespice:
image: bluespice/wiki
container_name: Bluespice
environment:

  • BS_LANG=en
  • BS_URL=192.168.###.####:8080
  • EDITION=free
  • BS_USER=adminuser
  • BS_PASSWORD=#####
  • BS_DB_PASSWORD=#####
  • DISABLE_PINGBACK=yes
  • WIKI_BACKUP_LIMIT=5
  • HTTP_PORT=8080
    volumes:
  • bluespice-data:/data
    user: “0:0”
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
bluespice-data:

System info:

  • OS: ubuntu 24.01
  • BlueSpice version: free 5.2.1

log of the container shows

Init data directory

Done

sh: 0: -c requires an argument

2

Hello Nick,

welcome to the community = )

Indeed it is technically possible to run BlueSpice using Portainer, though this is definitely not trivial.

The stack of containers running a BlueSpice requires a full set of different services, coordinated by a set of docker compose scripts in project hallowelt/bluespice-deploy. For BlueSpice 5.2.1, one should check: GitHub - hallowelt/bluespice-deploy at 5.2.1 .

A stack on Portainer is basically defined by one single docker compose yml, where our official docker compose stack relies on a setups of multiple ymls, one .env file and one script. Converting the latter to the former will require certain proficiency in docker compose as well as a certain amount of trial and error - I guess it would be a bit too hard to debug if one starts directly from crafting Portainer yml.

If you are using an AI tool to assist, the deploy script at tag 5.2.1 should be a good startpoint (please do not use branches, those are not yet released and are not stable). I noticed that most of your listed env variables are actually not variables used by the container images of BlueSpice - repositories like GitHub - hallowelt/docker-bluespice-wiki at 5.2.1 has full sets of documentations for all possible config variables.

A few hints:

  • the compose/bluespice-deploy shell script defines the order of load of different ymls - on services of the same name, later ymls will overwrite earlier ymls
  • the current setup depends on a data directory on the file system. Some of the services (opensearch, mariadb) are picky about ownership and permissions - usage of volumes is not well tested. GitHub - hallowelt/docker-bluespice-helper: Prepare Data-Environment and provide helper-scripts is used for the prepare container ensuring directories and generating secrets.
  • one might need to add dependencies between containers to ensure a correct order of start up
  • one might need to consider a non-default proxy setup, and to play with network connections between docker containers - these are not trivial as well.

If you feel like to try an installation that aligns with our common practice, please check Setup:Installation Guide/Docker - BlueSpice Helpdesk .

Hope you have fun with BlueSpice, and looking forward to your further feedbacks = )

Best wishes,
Hua

3

AH Thank you for letting me know,
I might try to “develop” on this but not sure how this will go.
No AI tools.

4

Hello again Nick,

I learnt from my colleague that there is actually a semi-auto approach - for the docker compose command, which is used by both Portainer and the compose/bluespice-deploy script, has an option to output a rendered version of one single yml file: This is the docker compose config command, see docker compose config | Docker Docs .

To output an usable yml, one can first create an .env config like Setup:Installation Guide/Docker - BlueSpice Helpdesk , then run ./bluespice-deploy config to bake one single .yml file containing all services in their rendered form. (You can also explore the documentation of docker compose config to see if you want other options or so.)

While this simplifies the work, there are a few more hints:

  • When you run the config output, the prepare container will set up your data directory (creating subdirectory, generating secrets and so on)
  • Proxy might still be a challenge - the default proxy uses the 80/443 ports, which might not be available on your server.
  • You might want to use environment variables to ease repetitive of parameters - in a Portainer project you can configure many. Theoretically ./bluespice-deploy config --no-interpolate would be helpful - inspect and see if it works well for your use case.

Looking forward to your experiment and experience - have fun = )

Best wishes,
Hua