Portainer on a Seedbox: Manage Docker Visually

What Portainer Is

Portainer is a web UI for Docker. Instead of managing containers over SSH, you get a dashboard in your browser: see what is running, read logs, restart things, pull images, and deploy whole Compose stacks with a form. On a Bytesized appbox it pairs naturally with our rootless Docker, and like any container here it gets its own HTTPS address automatically.

Everywhere below, replace USERNAME with your panel username in lowercase and SERVER with your server name; your appbox page shows both. New to Docker on your appbox? Start with Run Your Own Docker Containers on a Seedbox.

Install

One command over SSH:

mkdir -p ~/apps/portainer/data
docker run -d --name portainer --restart unless-stopped \
    --network traefik_USERNAME \
    -v ~/.docker/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v ~/apps/portainer/data:/data \
    -l 'traefik.enable=true' \
    -l 'traefik.http.routers.portainer.rule=Host(`portainer.USERNAME.SERVER.bysh.me`)' \
    -l 'traefik.http.routers.portainer.entrypoints=web' \
    -l 'traefik.http.services.portainer.loadbalancer.server.port=9000' \
    portainer/portainer-ce:latest

The docker.sock line is what lets Portainer see and manage your Docker; on an appbox that socket lives at ~/.docker/run/docker.sock rather than the location Portainer tutorials usually show.

First Run: Do This Right Away

Open https://portainer.USERNAME.SERVER.bysh.me immediately after the install. Portainer asks the first visitor to create the admin account, and it only keeps that door open for about five minutes after startup. If you miss the window it locks itself and shows a timeout message; no harm done, just run docker restart portainer and try again promptly.

Create your admin user, pick the local environment, and you are in.

What to Use It For

• Containers: start, stop, and restart anything you run, with live logs and a console.
• Stacks: paste a Compose file into the Stacks section and deploy it from the browser. Remember to join web apps to your traefik_USERNAME network with the routing labels, exactly as in the Docker guide, so they get their HTTPS address.
• Images and volumes: see what is taking disk space and prune leftovers.

Two notes specific to appboxes. Containers you create through Portainer live outside the Bytesized panel, so they will not get start, stop, or upgrade buttons there; Portainer is their home. And the resource numbers Portainer shows come from the shared server rather than your slice alone, so treat them as indicative.

Removing It

docker rm -f portainer

Your other containers are untouched; Portainer is only a window onto them. The ~/apps/portainer/data folder keeps your Portainer settings if you ever want it back.