---
tags: [notediscovery, article, server admin, ubuntu, digitalocean, docker, published]
---


Dead Simple Deployment: NoteDiscovery
=====================================

Recently I've been quite excited by a new open source note taking application called [NoteDiscovery](https://www.notediscovery.com/). It has a ton of features already and seems to be growing daily at this point thanks to the dedication of its developer [Guillermo Villar](https://github.com/gamosoft). The application is self-hosted and super easy to deploy thanks to the excellent docker setup and [documentation](https://github.com/gamosoft/NoteDiscovery/blob/main/README.md).

Follow along with my tutorial here to get up and running in just a few minutes!


**[WIP TUTORIAL]**

Stack Overview
--------------

|               |              |
|---------------|--------------|
|    Server     | Ubuntu 24.04 |
| Proxy Server  | Caddy        |
| Hosting       | Digitalocean |

For this tutorial I'm going to assume you've got a fairly fresh Ubuntu 24.04 installation running. You're free to use any hosting you like; I went with digitalcoean simply because I'm already familiar with their services and their droplets are cheap and easy to spin up. You can also just run the docker container on your local machine, but I wanted to be able to access my notes on-the-go. If you want the same you're in the right place!


Caddy reverse proxy
-------------------

I went with Caddy as my [reverse proxy](https://nordvpn.com/blog/reverse-proxy/) server because it does everything I need and is very easy to set up. It even handles setting up your SSL certificates automatically! Nginx and even Apache are also options, but require quite a bit more configuration to get up and running safely.

Install caddy

```bash
sudo apt install caddy
```

Configure the proxy by editing `/etc/caddy/Caddyfile`. replace `[exernal url]` with either a domain/subdomain pointed to your server or your server's ip public address. By default NoteDiscovery runs on port 8000, so replace `[internal port]` with that.
```
[external url] {
        reverse_proxy localhost:[internal port]
}
```
In my case I pointed my subdomain `notediscovery` on `radet5.com` at my server so my config looks like this
```
notediscovery.radet5.com {
        reverse_proxy localhost:8000
}
```

Then just restart the caddy service
```bash
systemctl restart caddy
```

Also wouldn't hurt to double check its status to make sure it is running successfully and is enabled
```bash
systemctl status caddy
```

TODO: BASIC AUTH CONFIGURATION AND BCRYPT

If that looks good, you're all set with a SSL secured reverse proxy!

Creating a user
---------------

I've created a dedicated user named `notediscovery` on my server for running the NoteDiscovery docker container in order to isolate it from other services I'm hosting. You can use any user you like, but do not use the root account to run the docker container.

Set this variable to just copy/paste the following commands
```bash
user='notediscovery'
```

Add user
```bash
adduser $user
```

Add to sudoers
```bash
usermod -aG sudo $user
```
then log in as your user


Installing and Preparing Rootless Docker
-------------------------------

There are two recommended ways of installing Docker on Ubuntu 24.04, either view the Ubuntu maintained package `docker.io` or the docker maintained package `docker-ce`. Each package handles the docker installation a bit differently. I decided to stick with the Ubuntu approach.

In order to avoid running the Docker container with root privileges I've also configured the system to support running Docker with user level privileges in the interest of security.

Install the `docker.io` base package
```bash
sudo apt install docker.io
```

`uidmap` is required for the user ID mapping used for rootless Docker
```bash
sudo apt install uidmap
```
Before we can run the docker-rootless installation script Ubuntu requires a little extra configuration. The following adds a rule to the `/etc/apparmor.d/` directory  as specified on the [Ubuntu Blog](https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-23-10-restricted-unprivileged-user-namespaces) in order to allow just our unprivileged `rootlesskit` process the limited kernel access it needs to run the docker deamon.

Be sure you are logged in as the user who will be running the docker container (or replace all instances of `$user` with that user's name).

```bash
user=$(whoami)
cat <<EOT | sudo tee "/etc/apparmor.d/home.$user.bin.rootlesskit"
# ref: https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-23-10-restricted-unprivileged-user-namespaces
abi <abi/4.0>,
include <tunables/global>

/home/$user/bin/rootlesskit flags=(unconfined) {
  userns,

  # Site-specific additions and overrides. See local/README for details.
  include if exists <local/home.$user.bin.rootlesskit>
}
EOT
sudo systemctl restart apparmor.service
```

With that done we can download and run docker rootless install script
```bash
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com/rootless | sh
```

I found that in order to run docker compose properly I needed docker v2 this will download it and install it where it needs to be
```bash
mkdir -p .docker/cli-plugins
curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.40.3/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
chmod +x ./.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
```

And finally enable the user level docker service and allow it to continue running after the user has logged out. This way the service will stay up!
```bash
systemctl --user enable docker
sudo loginctl enable-linger $(whoami)
```


NoteDiscovery install & config
-----------------------------------------

From here you can follow any of the setup instructions, but I'll go over the easiest one here: using the pre-built GHCR image.

First we create the required directories. Your markdown notes will be stored in the `data` directory.
```bash
mkdir -p data plugins themes
```
Next we download the default config file along with two of the themes (there are several others you're encouraged to grab from the repo! I'm a fan of Monokai personally)
```bash
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gamosoft/notediscovery/main/config.yaml
curl -o themes/light.css https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gamosoft/notediscovery/main/themes/light.css
curl -o themes/dark.css https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gamosoft/notediscovery/main/themes/dark.css
```

Finally, we'll need the container image itself
```bash
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gamosoft/notediscovery/main/docker-compose.ghcr.yml
```

MORE COMING SOON



Radet Hannibal-5

Dead Simple Deployment: NoteDiscovery