starr-philproperties/SELF_HOSTING.md

Self-Hosting new_starr (Docker Compose) — Step-by-Step

Video tutorial soon

This stack bundles everything: PostgreSQL, Valkey (Redis), Garage (S3), the API, and the frontend. Battle-tested end-to-end on a completely fresh Debian machine on 2026-08-29 every gotcha below actually happened once and is now fixed or documented.

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0. What you need

• Docker Engine + Compose plugin
• Node.js 22 + pnpm (only needed once, to build the frontend bundle)
• Git access to this repo

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1. Install Docker

Check your actual distro first — Docker has separate repos for Debian and Ubuntu, and mixing them up 404s:

cat /etc/os-release   # check ID (debian/ubuntu) and VERSION_CODENAME

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

(Swap debian → ubuntu in both URLs if you're actually on Ubuntu. If your codename is brand-new and Docker's repo 404s, fall back to the previous stable codename — e.g. use bookworm instead of trixie.)

Let your user run Docker without sudo:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker
docker compose version   # sanity check

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2. Clone & install

git clone git@github.com:rgrgogu/new_starr.git
cd new_starr
corepack enable && corepack prepare pnpm@11.3.0 --activate
pnpm install

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3. Configure environment — three files, not two

apps/api/.env

cp apps/api/.env-production apps/api/.env

Fill in every CHANGE_ME. For a local bundled stack (as opposed to CockroachDB Cloud / managed S3), these specific values matter:

DB_HOST=postgres
DB_PORT=5432
DB_SSL=false                          # bundled Postgres has no TLS
CACHE_DRIVER=redis
REDIS_URL=redis://valkey:6379
S3_ENDPOINT=http://garage:3900
GARAGE_RPC_SECRET=<openssl rand -hex 32>

Generate every secret independently:

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

apps/web/.env

cd apps/web && cp .env.example .env

Fill in VITE_API_URL, VITE_APP_URL, etc., then cd ../...

Root new_starr/.env — easy to miss, causes silent failures

docker-compose.yml's bundled postgres service reads ${DB_NAME}, ${DB_USER}, ${DB_PASSWORD} from a root-level .env — NOT from apps/api/.env. Create it separately, with exactly the same values as the DB block you just put in apps/api/.env:

DB_NAME=starr
DB_USER=starr
DB_PASSWORD=<same password as apps/api/.env>

⚠️ Postgres only reads these once, at first-ever container start, and bakes them into its data volume. If the two files ever drift apart afterward, you'll get password authentication failed even though everything "looks" configured — fix by making apps/api/.env match what's actually in the volume (the root .env value at the time Postgres first started), not the other way around.

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4. Build the frontend bundle before building images

apps/web/Dockerfile only copies a pre-built dist/ — it does not run the build itself:

pnpm --filter web build

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5. Bring the stack up

docker compose up -d --build
docker compose ps       # all 5 services should show Up/healthy

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6. One-time Garage (S3) cluster init

Garage's image ships only a static binary — no shell — so this can't be scripted as a container entrypoint; it's a manual one-time step:

docker compose exec garage /garage node id

Copy the ID (the part before the @host:port), then:

docker compose exec garage /garage layout assign <NODE_ID> -z dc1 -c 100G
docker compose exec garage /garage layout apply --version 1
docker compose exec garage /garage bucket create <S3_BUCKET>
docker compose exec garage /garage key import <S3_ACCESS_KEY> <S3_SECRET_KEY> -n starr-app --yes
docker compose exec garage /garage bucket allow <S3_BUCKET> --read --write --owner --key <S3_ACCESS_KEY>

(S3_BUCKET/S3_ACCESS_KEY/S3_SECRET_KEY are whatever you set in apps/api/.env.)

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7. Run database migrations

docker compose exec backend sequelize-cli db:migrate

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8. Verify

docker compose ps

• Frontend: http://localhost:4650
• Backend: http://localhost:3024/api

If both respond, you're done with local testing.

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9. (Optional) Put a real domain + HTTPS in front

For actually deploying this somewhere reachable, use the Caddyfile at the repo root as a template. It's a standalone Caddy install on the host (not part of docker-compose.yml) that reverse-proxies 3 domains to the 3 ports already published above (:4650, :3024, :3900) and handles Let's Encrypt certificates automatically. See the comments at the top of Caddyfile for exact steps. Not needed for local localhost:4650 testing — skip this until you're pointing a real domain at the machine.

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Troubleshooting — real errors hit while writing this guide

Symptom	Cause	Fix
apt 404: .../linux/ubuntu <codename> Release not found	Docker repo added for the wrong distro (e.g. Ubuntu URL on a Debian box)	Match the URL to your real distro/codename from /etc/os-release
permission denied ... docker.sock	User not in the docker group	sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && newgrp docker
WARN: "DB_NAME" variable is not set (and similar)	Root new_starr/.env missing	Create it (see step 3)
postgres container stuck Restarting	POSTGRES_PASSWORD blank (same root .env issue)	Same fix as above
exec: "/bin/sh": stat /bin/sh: no such file or directory	Some images (like Garage's) ship no shell at all — never wrap their entrypoint in /bin/sh	Use the image's default command; do cluster setup via docker exec <container> <binary> directly (no shell needed)
Garage crash-loops: rpc_secret value is missing	GARAGE_RPC_SECRET not set in apps/api/.env	Set it, then docker compose up -d --force-recreate garage
password authentication failed for user ...	apps/api/.env and root .env DB passwords don't match exactly	Make them match; Postgres only honors whatever was set at first boot
Fixed a file but the same error keeps happening	Images bake in code at build time — there's no live volume mount	docker compose up -d --build <service> after any source change
ERROR: Unknown constraint error during migrate	Sequelize hides the real Postgres error behind this generic message	Run the raw SQL directly via docker compose exec postgres psql -U <user> -d <db> to see the actual cause
Migration uses STRING as a raw SQL type	CockroachDB alias, not valid in real Postgres	Already fixed in this repo (swapped to TEXT, which works on both)
A service vanishes from docker compose ps	A previous up was scoped to one service (e.g. up -d --build backend), which doesn't touch others	Run a plain docker compose up -d (no service name) to restore everything
Browser: "Unable to connect"	Either the container isn't actually running, or you're browsing from a different machine than the one running Docker	Check docker compose ps first; localhost only resolves to the machine Docker is on

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Notes

• Frontend is served on :4650, not :80 — change frontend.ports in docker-compose.yml if you want a different port.
• Cluster init for Garage is intentionally manual (step 6) — the old automated garage-init.sh approach was removed because it depended on a shell that doesn't exist in the Garage image.