Dockerfile for OwnTracks Recorder

Dockerfile for the Recorder of the OwnTracks project. The image is owntracks/recorder.

Quickstart

docker volume create recorder_store
docker run -d -p 8083:8083 -v recorder_store:/store -e OTR_HOST=mqtt_broker owntracks/recorder

Recorder is now accessible at http://localhost:8083.

-p 8083:8083 makes the container reachable at port 8083. -d detaches the container into the background. The volume recorder_store is mounted at /store into the container. This is needed to have persistent data storage. -e allows to pass additional configuration to the container as environment variables. Multiple -e parameters can be used for multiple environment variables.

Configuration

The Recorder can be configured using two methods, environment variables and via the a recorder.conf file in the /config volume of the container.

Environment variables

Can be passed to the container with the -e parameter. Example:

docker run -d -p 8083:8083 \
        -e OTR_HOST=mqtt_broker \
        -e OTR_PORT=1883 \
        -e OTR_USER=user \
        -e OTR_PASS=pass \
        owntracks/recorder

The complete list of parameters can be found in the recorder documentation.

Configuration file

One can also use a configuration file. The container reads a recorder.conf file from the /config folder. To use this, create a folder e.g. ./config and mount it into you docker container at /config.

mkdir config
docker run -d -p 8083:8083 -v recorder_store:/store -v ./config:/config owntracks/recorder

Up on starting the recorder, default recorder.conf settings are used if no file exists. Possible options are documented here.

Notes:

• The value of OTR_HOST is as seen from the container. Thus localhost refers to the container not the host and should likely not be used.
• Environment variables, overwrite the recorder.conf file options.
• The shell like style of therecorder.conf file needs "" encapsulated variable values.

Storing data

The /store volume of the container is used for persistent storage of location data. The volume needs to be created explicitly.

docker volume create recorder_storage
docker run -d -p 8083:8083 -v recorder_store:/store owntracks/recorder

It is also possible to use a local folder instead of an static docker volume.

mkdir store
docker run -d -p 8083:8083 -v ./store:/store owntracks/recorder

If nothing is mounted at /store, docker will create a unique volume automatically. However up on recreation of the docker container, this process will be repeated and another unique volume will be created. As a result, the container will have forgotten about previous tracks.

TLS between MQTT broker and recorder

The OTR_CAPATH of the container defaults to the /config volume. Thus certificates and key files belong into the /config volume. OTR_CAFILE must be configured for TLS.

OTR_CERTFILE defaults to cert.pem and OTR_KEYFILE to key.pem. These files are optional and the options are ignored if the files don't exist.

TLS encryption via reverse proxy

The Recorder has no encryption module by it self. Instead use a reverse proxy setup. See https://github.com/jwilder/nginx-proxy for how to do this in a semi automatic way with docker containers and https://github.com/owntracks/recorder#reverse-proxy for Recorder specific details.

Docker compose files

Save a file with the name docker-compose.yml and following content. Run with docker-compose up from the same folder.

version: '3'

services:

  otrecorder:
    image: owntracks/recorder
    ports:
      - 8083:8083
    volumes:
      - config:/config
      - store:/store
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  store:
  config:

This docker-compose.yml file creates store and config volumes. It is possible to edit the recorder.conf file in the config volume to get the system up and running. It is also possible to pass environment variables to the docker container via the environment: keyword. For details see here and for available variables see here.

An example might look like:

version: '3'

services:

  otrecorder:
    image: owntracks/recorder
    ports:
      - 8083:8083
    volumes:
      - store:/store
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - OTR_HOST = "mqtt_broker"
      - OTR_USER = "user"
      - OTR_PASS = "pass"

volumes:
  store:

With MQTT broker

If you need to set up an MQTT broker, you can easily use, say, Mosquitto. There are ready to use containers available on docker hub. To use eclipse-mosquitto add something like the following to your docker-compose.yml file.

version: '3'

services:

  otrecorder:
    image: owntracks/recorder
    ports:
      - 8083:8083
    volumes:
      - config:/config
      - store:/store
    restart: unless-stopped

  mosquitto:
    image: eclipse-mosquitto
    ports:
      - 1883:1883
      - 8883:8883
    volumes:
      - mosquitto-data:/mosquitto/data
      - mosquitto-logs:/mosquitto/logs
      - mosquitto-conf:/mosquitto/config
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  store:
  config:
  mosquitto-data:
  mosquitto-logs:
  mosquitto-conf:

See here for info on the eclipse-mosquitto image and how to configure it.

All in one solution with reverse proxy and Let's Encrypt

There are some caveats people seem to step into:

1. mosquitto starts only if the cert files referenced in the configuration are accessible. Therefore for a successful retrieval from Let's encrypt by the ACME companion those lines in the configuration have to be commented out. In order to test things start unencrypted first.

2. The example documentation to create a password include -c as command line switch. Be sure only to use this if you want to overwrite that password file.

3. In order to make ot-recorder talk SSL & accept Let's encrypt certificates a kind of concatenated le-ca.pem is needed. A thread in an issue is discussing this in detail. In the example below this file is downloaded as ca.pem.

4. nginx-proxy allows basic auth. For that one needs to put a file name after the virtual host, e.g. owntrack.domain.com in the folder /etc/nginx/htpasswd

version: '2'

services:
  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy:alpine
    container_name: nginx
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - ./proxy/conf.d:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - ./proxy/proxy.conf:/etc/nginx/proxy.conf
      - ./proxy/vhost.d:/etc/nginx/vhost.d
      - ./proxy/html:/usr/share/nginx/html
      - ./proxy/certs:/etc/nginx/certs:ro
      - ./proxy/htpasswd:/etc/nginx/htpasswd:ro
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
      - acme:/etc/acme.sh
    networks:
      - proxy-tier

  letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion:
    image: nginxproxy/acme-companion
    container_name: letsencrypt-companion
    depends_on: [nginx]
    volumes_from:
      - nginx-proxy
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./proxy/certs:/etc/nginx/certs:rw
      - acme:/etc/acme.sh
    #environment:
      #- ACME_CA_URI=https://acme-staging-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
      #User above line for testing the setup 

  otrecorder:
    image: owntracks/recorder
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=owntracks.domain.com
      - VIRTUAL_PORT=8083
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=owntracks.domain.com
      - [email protected]
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/Berlin
      - OTR_USER="user"
      - OTR_PASS="password"
      - OTR_HOST=mqtt.domain.com
      - OTR_PORT=8883
      - OTR_CAFILE=/config/ca.pem
      #content of the file above from https://gist.github.com/jpmens/211dbe7904a0efd40e2e590066582ae5
      #which is 6 certificates in one file. !!!This turns out to be important!!!
    volumes:
      - ./owntracks/config:/config
      - ./owntracks/store:/store
      - ./proxy/certs:/etc/letsencrypt/live:ro #probably this line is not needed
    networks:
      - proxy-tier
  
  mqtt:
    container_name: mqtt
    image: eclipse-mosquitto
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=mqtt.domain.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=mqtt.domain.com
      - [email protected]
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/Berlin
    ports:
      - 1883:1883
      - 8883:8883
      - 8083:8083
    volumes:
      - ./mosquitto/data:/mosquitto/data
      - ./mosquitto/logs:/mosquitto/logs
      - ./mosquitto/conf:/mosquitto/config
      - ./mosquitto/conf/passwd:/etc/mosquitto/passwd
      - ./proxy/certs:/etc/letsencrypt/live:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  acme:
networks:
  proxy-tier:
    external:
      name: nginx-proxy

a minimal mosquitto.conf which can act as a start:

allow_anonymous false
password_file /etc/mosquitto/passwd
#use mosquitto_passwd inside container to populate the passwd file

#listener 1883 
#socket_domain ipv4
#uncomment 2 lines above for first run so we get LE certificates. 
#at the same time comment out all lines below. Once you have the certificate
#stop the unencrypted listener

listener 8883
certfile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mqtt.domain.com/cert.pem
cafile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mqtt.domain.com/chain.pem
keyfile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mqtt.domain.com/key.pem

listener 8083
protocol websockets
certfile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mqtt.domain.com/cert.pem
cafile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mqtt.domain.com/chain.pem
keyfile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mqtt.domain.com/key.pem 

Healthcheck

The Recorder container can perform a Docker-style HEALTHCHECK on itself by periodically running recorder-health.sh on itself if enabled during build. This program POSTS a _type: location JSON message to itself over HTTP to the ping-ping endpoint and verifies via the HTTP API whether the message was received.

Possible enhancements

• Maybe put the most common Mosquitto options in the section which uses an MQTT broker in the docker-compose file

Credits

• JSON.lua, by Jeffrey Friedl. LICENSE