Portainer deployment

[mhokama86]

do you have info to deploy via portainer. i tried with the docker-compose and env variables, update the volume to a ./ and still getting errors. anything you could do would help.

if not, do you have a one line installer guide?

[Blb3D]

Hey @mhokama86 — thanks for the writeup. Without the actual error my best guess is one of two things, and both are install-side sharp edges I need to file down:

1. If you used Portainer's "Web editor" or "Upload" mode for the stack: the compose file currently has build: directives for backend and frontend, which need a source tree that those modes don't provide — the build fails with "no such file or directory" inside Portainer's internal stack directory. Switch to Repository mode pointed at https://github.com/blb3d/filaops and the builds will resolve. (GHCR-published images are coming so this won't be a footgun forever.)

2. About the ./ volume change: under Portainer Stacks, ./ doesn't resolve to where you think it does. It points at /data/compose/<stack-id>/ on the Docker host — Portainer's internal stack directory, owned by root. The Postgres named volume specifically (filaops_pgdata) will refuse to init if you swap it to a relative bind, because PG can't chown the target. My recommendation: leave the named volumes as-is. If you want host paths for backups, docker volume inspect filaops_pgdata will show where the data actually lives on the host. If you really need a host bind for ./uploads, use an absolute path like /srv/filaops/uploads:/app/uploads — never ./ under Portainer.

A few other Portainer gotchas worth flagging while I'm at it:

• Env vars: paste them into Portainer's "Environment variables" section in the stack UI, not via a .env file. At minimum override DB_PASSWORD and SECRET_KEY — the defaults in the compose file are placeholders (changeme / change-in-production) and you don't want those in production. Yes, also on the fix list.
• Port 80: if you already run nginx-proxy-manager, Traefik, or anything else on 80, the frontend container won't bind. Stop the conflict, or shout and I'll walk you through overriding the host port.
• Restart on reboot: the current compose doesn't set restart: unless-stopped on the long-runners, so after a host reboot the stack stays down until you click Start. Also on the fix list.

If you try Repository mode + leave the named volumes alone and you're still hitting errors, paste the error from Portainer's stack logs (or the failing container's logs) and I'll dig in directly.

On the one-liner installer: not yet, but it's on the roadmap. The same compose hygiene that would make Portainer painless is also what unblocks a curl | bash story, so the work is shared. Aiming for both within the next month-ish — no firm date.

Appreciate the discussion. This is exactly the kind of feedback that helps me sand the rough edges, so genuinely thank you for taking the time.

[mhokama86]

I'll start from the beginning without changes so you can track a baseline.

1. took the docker-compose.yaml from git
2. ran the command python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))"
3. set env variables
4. got the error
   Failed to deploy a stack: compose build operation failed: unable to prepare context: path "/data/compose/120/backend" not found

`version: '3.8'

services:
db:
image: postgres:16
container_name: filaops-db
environment:
POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_NAME:-filaops}
POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USER:-postgres}
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD:-changeme}
ports:
- "5432:5432"
volumes:
- filaops_pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U $$POSTGRES_USER -d $$POSTGRES_DB"]
interval: 5s
timeout: 5s
retries: 5
networks:
- filaops-network

migrate:
build:
context: ./backend
dockerfile: Dockerfile
container_name: filaops-migrate
command: ["bash", "scripts/docker-migrate.sh"]
environment:
DB_HOST: db
DB_PORT: 5432
DB_NAME: ${DB_NAME:-filaops}
DB_USER: ${DB_USER:-postgres}
DB_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD:-changeme}
SECRET_KEY: ${SECRET_KEY:-change-in-production}
# PRO — set FILAOPS_LICENSE_KEY in .env to activate PRO features
FILAOPS_LICENSE_KEY: ${FILAOPS_LICENSE_KEY:-}
DATABASE_URL: postgresql+psycopg://${DB_USER:-postgres}:${DB_PASSWORD:-changeme}@db:5432/${DB_NAME:-filaops}
depends_on:
db:
condition: service_healthy
restart: "no"
networks:
- filaops-network

backend:
build:
context: ./backend
dockerfile: Dockerfile
container_name: filaops-backend
ports:
- "8000:8000"
environment:
DB_HOST: db
DB_PORT: 5432
DB_NAME: ${DB_NAME:-filaops}
DB_USER: ${DB_USER:-postgres}
DB_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD:-changeme}
SECRET_KEY: ${SECRET_KEY:-change-in-production}
ENVIRONMENT: ${ENVIRONMENT:-development}
ALLOWED_ORIGINS: ${ALLOWED_ORIGINS:-http://localhost}
FRONTEND_URL: ${FRONTEND_URL:-http://localhost}
FILAOPS_VERSION: ${FILAOPS_VERSION:-}
# PRO — set FILAOPS_LICENSE_KEY in .env to activate PRO features
FILAOPS_LICENSE_KEY: ${FILAOPS_LICENSE_KEY:-}
depends_on:
migrate:
condition: service_completed_successfully
db:
condition: service_healthy
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD", "python", "-c", "import urllib.request; urllib.request.urlopen('http://localhost:8000/health', timeout=5).read()"]
interval: 30s
timeout: 10s
retries: 3
start_period: 40s
volumes:
- ./uploads:/app/uploads
networks:
- filaops-network

frontend:
build:
context: ./frontend
dockerfile: Dockerfile
args:
VITE_API_URL: ""
container_name: filaops-frontend
ports:
- "80:8080"
depends_on:
- backend
networks:
- filaops-network

volumes:
filaops_pgdata:
name: filaops_pgdata

networks:
filaops-network:
name: filaops-network`

DB_HOST=localhost DB_PORT=5432 DB_NAME=filaops DB_USER=postgres DB_PASSWORD=password SECRET_KEY=<redacted> **updated for safety by BLB3D ENVIRONMENT=development ALLOWED_ORIGINS=http://localhost

[Blb3D]

Thanks for the clean baseline — that error message tells me exactly what's going on.

The error: path "/data/compose/120/backend" not found is Portainer trying to build the backend image from source, but in Web Editor / Upload mode there's no source tree available — only the YAML you pasted. The compose file's build: { context: ./backend } lines need an actual backend/ directory next to the compose file, which Repository mode provides and Web Editor doesn't.

The fix — use Repository mode:

1. In Portainer, go to Stacks → Add stack
2. Give it a name (e.g. filaops)
3. Under Build method, choose Repository (not Web editor)
4. Repository URL: https://github.com/Blb3D/filaops
5. Repository reference: refs/heads/main
6. Compose path: docker-compose.yml
7. Skip the authentication section (the repo is public)
8. Scroll down to Environment variables and paste yours there (DB_PASSWORD, SECRET_KEY, etc.) — don't use a .env file, the UI fields are what Portainer reads
9. Deploy the stack

What this changes: Portainer clones the repo into /data/compose/<stack-id>/ so the ./backend and ./frontend build contexts now resolve. The build will take 3–5 minutes the first time — backend is the slow one because of the Python deps.

---

One important heads-up before anything else: the SECRET_KEY you posted in this thread is now public. Once you deploy to anything you actually care about, regenerate it (python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))" again) and don't reuse the one in this thread — anyone reading #575 can forge JWTs signed with it. Same goes for DB_PASSWORD if you're going past local testing. Sorry I should have called this out more clearly the first time around — the README is going to grow a "never share your .env publicly" warning because of this exchange, so thank you for making that gap visible.

---

Two other things you'll likely hit after the build succeeds:

• ALLOWED_ORIGINS=http://localhost in your env will block the frontend from talking to the backend if you access FilaOps from any machine other than the Portainer host itself. Set it to your actual hostname or LAN IP, e.g. http://192.168.1.50 or http://filaops.local.
• Port 80 — if anything else on the host already uses 80 (nginx-proxy-manager, Traefik, Apache, etc.) the frontend will fail to bind. Stop the conflict first, or shout and I'll show you the override pattern.

---

On the bigger picture: the build-from-source thing you hit is the #1 reason Portainer Stacks isn't smooth for FilaOps right now. The fix is publishing prebuilt images to GitHub Container Registry so Portainer can pull them directly instead of building — that's queued for after the current launch work, alongside a proper Portainer guide and a one-line installer. You hitting this is exactly the forcing function I needed to prioritize it.

Give Repository mode a try and let me know how it goes. If the build itself fails (vs. the context-not-found error), paste the build logs from Portainer's stack view and I'll dig in.

[mhokama86]

awesome. I'll give it a try

[mhokama86]

<img width="1318" height="369" alt="image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/041565d4-9aca-499c-96fa-7dec52d0f155" shows sucessfully deployed, but here's the status of the containers.
I appreciate your help, and hopefully this helps the wider audience in the future

[mhokama86]

Woooowhooo! got it running in a dev environment!

[Blb3D]

Thats great to hear, please let me know if you have anything else pop up.