im sure i did see @psweb post a article on how to set this up… it was quite detailed…
Just have to look for it… as it might be the way to go… and not use DO … as this seems to be the solution for my scenario… if my project was different then DO would work wonders… at least i then have control over the FTP of the files… thanks for sharing your solution @Hyperbytes
Pauls tutorial was written using my server. He helped me with the setup!
where is this server hosted? London?
As it would be interesting to see the load speed… and compare it to a local provider (South Africa) eg… Afrihost… @psweb gave me a good explanation about it… Maybe if possible. we can load a file on @psweb server … and a file on your server @Hyperbytes and see the speed here in south africa… and compare them…
PS! I love how simple the DO container is and how easy it is to deploy… but do need the flexibility to only FTP certain files to a server…
I am happy to assist. I do seem to recall paul said my uk cloud based servers were faster than his vps but things may have changed.
1 Like
That is awesome 
thanks @Hyperbytes… yes as @psweb Paul told me the same… lol… local servers not as fast as international… that is crazy… welcome to africa…
Just looking for the post he made… if you can find it before me… then please post the link here… and ill do the same…
1 Like
oohh… i see you have load of experience of this topic.
Interesting … thanks that answers all of my questions…
Am using 20i still. They offer both managed and unmanaged vps. The post was after using their managed offerings and they couldn’t get it to work with wappler. Their unmanaged servers however work perfectly when setup via the process detailed in the post.
After researching alternatives I realised their costs were actually very good.
Does beg the question, if the solution is to bypass docker and use FTP then why use docker in the first place?
I do understand dockers use if its a small site… press “deploy” button and its done… so it super cool and fast…
But i do like the fact that i can control “bigger” sites content… imagine you have a 50MB site… 2000+ files… (pdfs… images… bla bla …) and then you have to “deploy” a fresh copy all the time… that does not make sense to me… if i only need to “push” 1 or 2 file updates…
So here is my two cents worth, from a person who actually did not want to go the docker route originally.
I used to use shared hosting on Afrihost, and for local development I had MAMP installed an running.
Scenario 1: Client asks me to take over a site called apple.com as a silly example
I set up a local environment, in MAMP, that the client can not see, so I can not show them unless i setup a remote staging domain, which can not be called apple.com so I always found this part to be quite a pain, having local, fake remote for staging server, then the real server when the site was actually replaced.
Scenario 2: Have your own private / dedicated server rather where you can make as many fake domain accounts as you like regardless of if you own the domain or not.
Well it was easier as it saved me having to do all the MAMP stuff, it was still a pain with showing the client, I either had to show them via the server IP and a strange URL, or ask them to edit their hosts file to add in a dummy record.
New scenario, use Docker, it saves me the entire MAMP process, saves me the entire VPS, or dedicated server setup, in fact i do not even bother with domain names at all till the very end, so I use Wappler, setup a container, and in about 5 minutes i can see a full local and remote development environment and give my client an IP address that can also see it.
At the very end of the process, when all approved, i can alter DNS records and point the correct domain name to my IP Address of my container, which also means i never needed access to their existing cPanel, I never had to alter their server files, etc. So if something goes terribly wrong, one DNS record change gets them back to where they were instantly.
I can still FTP or SSH into the docker container to make single file changes if needed, docker volumes work great for user uploads.
Honestly the only thing I miss, specifically with NodeJS and not Docker as such is the inbuilt mail server. All the other parts of the process i find better at this stage.
Reading this whole topic and posts inside it maybe you don’t understand the purpose and idea of docker, containers and deploy procedure.
Also i won’t recommend ssh-ing into the container and putting random single files there.
1 Like
Sure… i dont disagree with you at all… im brand new to this docker … node thing… and im sure it will make sense in time… its just a steep learning curve… can i say that “php” is way more forgiving…
Im realy trying my best to get my head around how this node thing work… its not like im sitting here and blowing bubbles… just trying to understand the best way … work flow of getting things done… hence asking all these “silly” questions…
Also another topic, wrongly relating nodejs with docker - docker and nodejs are NOT related in any way
You are spot on there @teodor however the way some portray the topic of node, many posts seem to imply a relationship, certainly within Wappler, docker is often offereed being the “correct way of doing things”,
Also those choosing to go the VPS route are often told they are wrong or even told they must be stupid.
In my view there is no “correct” solution, just a personal choice.
2 Likes
When I first started with Docker, this was my one concern as many of my sites may have 5 gb of images included in the various pages.
What I did was rather use the Docker Volume, more meant for user uploads, however it is persistent storage, so on redelpoy it is never effected.
I therefore never store my images inside the assets folder inside the public folder, unless its a small site with 2 or 3 of them, instead i setup a user uploads path and store all my own images in there too, so a 5 gb site of images, and only 100 mb of ejs files, only redeploys the 100mb portion and never the entire 5gb images portion.
Agreed, I have done 10 different ways, and although this took some head scratching at first, it now works great for my particular needs.
1 Like
Yes, i confess if Wappler also included a db such as MySQL or Maria with the inbuilt node server it would be a great enhancement
1 Like
You can use sqlite locally with the built in node server, so that you don’t need a separate database server to run
1 Like