This repository contains necessary files to build a web-app running with Nginx / Gunicorn / Flask / Letsencrypt using Docker and docker-compose.

Note: Tested on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04

In this example the Flask app is built to run as a module, that's why there is no app.py nor wsgi.py file. The app configs are set-up inside __init__.py directly.

Replace all the files inside ./core/flask_app/ (including __init__.py) with yours.

If you haven't your app set-up to run as a module as explained above, you will need to create a wsgi.py file in ./core/.

Example:

# ./core/wsgi.py

# Import your flask entrypoint from `./core/flask_app/`, this is where you're setting up
# your app variable: app = Flask(__name__) and configs for app.
# The convention is to call this file app.py but it could be something else.
# For ex if your entrypoing is server.py this would be: from flask_app.server import app
from flask_app.app import app

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

Then you will need to change the gunicorn command here in the docker-compose file, and point it to the new entrypoint for gunicorn wsgi.py.

This would be: gunicorn -c gunicorn_ini.py wsgi:app

You might also want to update the ./core/requirements.txt file with your Python packages.
Also if you tweak ./core/gunicorn_ini.py, for this config to work, gunicorn needs to bind to port 5000.

Some specific Python packages might require specific dependencies on the Alpine image to install. Also as the image is set-up to run with a non-root user, if your app needs access to specific directories, you might need to edit the Dockerfile to allow access to the user app.

I recommend doing this in /opt

cd /opt
sudo git clone https://github.com/smallwat3r/docker-nginx-gunicorn-flask-letsencrypt.git

Install docker, docker-compose and make (explained above).

If you want to run your own Flask app, replace the files in ./core/flask_app/ by your own (explained above).

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out from the server and log back in for changes to apply.

In the .env file, enter your application details.

# .env

# email to get automatic alerts from Letsencrypt
[email protected]

# domain name or subdomain for Nginx config and Letsencrypt
DOMAIN=mysuperwebsite.com

# flask application environment
FLASK_ENV=development

We need to install the Letsencrypt client to get the SSL certicates.

sudo make install-le-client

It installs the Letsencrypt client and get a certificate for the specified web domain.

Note: Free Letsencrypt cert are only available for 90 days. To renew the cert run

sudo make renew-le-cert

Start application

sudo make dc-start

🎉 Your web-app should now be running online with HTTPS 🎉

Other commands

sudo make dc-reboot   # Reboot application.
sudo make dc-stop     # Stop application.
sudo make dc-cleanup  # Delete and clear docker images.

See LICENSE file.

Please report issues or questions here.