Skip to main content

Portainer Setup

Portainer is a web-based UI for managing Docker containers. Instead of using the terminal to check logs, restart containers, or inspect volumes, Portainer lets you do all of that from your browser.

1. Run the Portainer container​

docker run -d \
  --name portainer \
  --network nginx-network \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v portainer_data:/data \
  portainer/portainer-ce:latest
note

Do not add -p 9000:9000. Nginx handles all traffic — Portainer stays internal.

2. Add Portainer to the Nginx config​

Edit ~/nginx/nginx.conf and add the Portainer location block before the location / block:

# Portainer
location /portainer/ {
    proxy_pass http://portainer:9000/;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    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_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
}

3. Reload Nginx​

docker exec nginx nginx -s reload

4. First time setup​

Open your browser and go to:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/portainer/
warning

Portainer has a short timeout on first access. Create your admin account immediately after opening it, otherwise it will lock and you'll need to restart the container.

  1. Enter a username and a strong password
  2. Click Create user
  3. On the next screen click Get Started to connect to the local Docker environment

5. What you can do in Portainer​

Once inside, click on local to access your Docker environment. The most useful sections are:

Containers — see all running containers at a glance. From here you can start, stop, restart, view logs, and open a terminal inside any container without using SSH.

Volumes — inspect persistent data volumes like grafana_data, portainer_data, and your database volumes.

Networks — verify that all containers are correctly connected to nginx-network.

Images — see all Docker images downloaded on the server.

6. Verify all containers are running​

After logging in, go to Containers and confirm all of these show as Running (green dot):

  • nginx
  • n8n
  • grafana
  • prometheus
  • mysql-container
  • instance-prostgress
  • node-exporter
  • mysql-exporter
  • postgres-exporter
  • portainer