nginx, Frontend, Backend, ZEO container example

nginx, Frontend, Backend, ZEO container example#

This example is a very simple setup with one or more backend instances accessing a ZEO server and data being persisted in a Docker volume.

nginx in this example is used as a reverse proxy.

Setup#

Create an empty project directory named nginx-volto-plone-zeo.

mkdir nginx-volto-plone-zeo

Change into your project directory.

cd nginx-volto-plone-zeo

nginx configuration#

Add a default.conf that will be used by the nginx image:

upstream backend {
  server backend:8080;
}
upstream frontend {
  server frontend:3000;
}

server {
  listen 80  default_server;
  server_name  plone.localhost;

  location ~ /\+\+api\+\+($|/.*) {
      rewrite ^/(\+\+api\+\+\/?)+($|/.*) /VirtualHostBase/http/$server_name/Plone/++api++/VirtualHostRoot/$2 break;
      proxy_pass http://backend;
  }

  location ~ / {
      location ~* \.(js|jsx|css|less|swf|eot|ttf|otf|woff|woff2)$ {
          add_header Cache-Control "public";
          expires +1y;
          proxy_pass http://frontend;
      }
      location ~* static.*\.(ico|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg)$ {
          add_header Cache-Control "public";
          expires +1y;
          proxy_pass http://frontend;
      }

      proxy_set_header        Host $host;
      proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
      proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
      proxy_redirect http:// https://;
      proxy_pass http://frontend;
  }
}

Note

http://plone.localhost/ is the URL you will be using to access the website. You can either use localhost, or add it in your /etc/hosts file or DNS to point to the Docker host IP.

Service configuration with Docker Compose#

Now let's create a docker-compose.yml file:

services:

  webserver:
    image: nginx
    volumes:
      - ./default.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
    depends_on:
      - backend
      - frontend
    ports:
    - "80:80"

  frontend:
    image: plone/plone-frontend:${STACK_FRONTEND_TAG:?Set STACK_FRONTEND_TAG}
    environment:
      RAZZLE_INTERNAL_API_PATH: http://backend:8080/Plone
    ports:
    - "3000:3000"
    depends_on:
      - backend

  backend:
    image: plone/plone-backend:${STACK_BACKEND_TAG:?Set STACK_BACKEND_TAG}
    environment:
      SITE: Plone
      ZEO_ADDRESS: db:8100
      ZEO_SHARED_BLOB_DIR: on   # otherwise the backend will create its own blob storage
    volumes:
      - vol-site-data:/data     # the backend and database need access to the same volume
    ports:
    - "8080:8080"
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: plone/plone-zeo:${STACK_ZEO_TAG:?Set STACK_ZEO_TAG}
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - vol-site-data:/data

volumes:
  vol-site-data: {}

Environment variables#

The docker-compose.yml file reads the tags of its images from the following environment variables. All of them are required, and docker compose stops with an error if one of them is missing.

Variable

Description

Default value

Example

STACK_FRONTEND_TAG

Tag (version) of the image for the frontend

19

STACK_BACKEND_TAG

Tag (version) of the image for the backend

6.2

STACK_ZEO_TAG

Tag (version) of the image for the ZEO server

6

Create a .env file in your project directory with your values. Docker Compose reads it automatically when you run docker compose from that directory.

STACK_FRONTEND_TAG=19
STACK_BACKEND_TAG=6.2
STACK_ZEO_TAG=6

Build the project#

Start the stack with docker compose.

docker compose up -d

This pulls the needed images and starts Plone.

Access Plone via Browser#

After startup, go to http://plone.localhost/ and you should see the site.

Increase the number of backends#

To use two containers for the backend, run docker compose with --scale.

docker compose up --scale backend=2

Shutdown and cleanup#

The command docker compose down removes the containers and default network, but preserves the Plone database.

The command docker compose down --volumes removes the containers, default network, and the Plone database.

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