LiveSwitch (stack)
A basic LiveSwitch compose with gateway, caching, database and media server
Services
gateway
Configuration
Imagefrozenmountain/liveswitch-gateway:latest8080:80809090:90908443:844310443:10443CONNECTIONSTRINGS:DEFAULT=postgres://postgres:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/postgresCONNECTIONSTRINGS:CACHE=redis://redisalwaysImage details
media
Configuration
Imagefrozenmountain/liveswitch-media-server:latestCONNECTIONSTRINGS:DEFAULT=postgres://postgres:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@127.0.0.1:5432/postgresCONNECTIONSTRINGS:CACHE=redis://127.0.0.1SERVICEBASEURL=http://127.0.0.1:8080alwaysImage details
redis
Configuration
Imageredis6379:6379alwaysImage details
postgres
Configuration
Imagepostgres5432:5432POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}alwaysImage details
Standalone Install
Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying LiveSwitch (stack)
Install on Portainer
Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys
- Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
- Log into your Portainer web UI
- Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
- Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
- Select LiveSwitch (stack), fill in any config options, and hit Deploy
Template Import URL
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me
Original stackfile
The compose file this template deploys, straight from its repo:
# Taken from https://github.com/jvenema/liveswitch-docker-compose/blob/main/docker-compose.yml
version: "3"
services:
gateway:
image: frozenmountain/liveswitch-gateway:latest
restart: 'always'
ports:
- "8080:8080"
- "9090:9090"
- "8443:8443"
- "10443:10443"
environment:
- CONNECTIONSTRINGS:DEFAULT=postgres://postgres:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/postgres
- CONNECTIONSTRINGS:CACHE=redis://redis
networks:
- liveswitch
media:
# media server is super verbose...
#logging:
# driver: none
image: frozenmountain/liveswitch-media-server:latest
restart: 'always'
# necessary for media servers due to dynamic port management
network_mode: 'host'
ulimits:
nofile: 65535
environment:
# running on IP instead of by name due to the host network
- CONNECTIONSTRINGS:DEFAULT=postgres://postgres:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@127.0.0.1:5432/postgres
- CONNECTIONSTRINGS:CACHE=redis://127.0.0.1
- SERVICEBASEURL=http://127.0.0.1:8080
redis:
image: redis
restart: 'always'
# ports needed to support meda server running on host network
ports:
- "6379:6379"
networks:
- liveswitch
postgres:
image: postgres
restart: 'always'
networks:
- liveswitch
# ports needed to support meda server running on host network
ports:
- "5432:5432"
environment:
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
networks:
liveswitch:Or deploy it directly from the source:
git clone https://github.com/portainer/templates
cd templates
docker compose -f stacks/liveswitch/docker-compose.yml up -dMore install options in our documentation.
Container Documentation
gateway Documentation
LiveSwitch Gateway releases.
media Documentation
LiveSwitch Media Server releases.
redis Documentation
Redis is the world’s fastest data platform for caching, vector search, and NoSQL databases.
postgres Documentation
The PostgreSQL object-relational database system provides reliability and data integrity.
Serve LiveSwitch (stack) on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.
Proxying liveswitch-stack.example.com to http://gateway:8080
Add this to your Caddyfile
liveswitch-stack.example.com {
reverse_proxy http://gateway:8080
}Check the logs first
Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.
- In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run
docker logs <container> - Exit codes help too:
137means killed, usually out of memory.126or127means the command inside the image is broken.
Port already in use
If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:8080 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.
- Find what's using it:
sudo ss -tlnp | grep :8080 - Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In
8080:8080only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.
Running but the page won't load
The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.
- Use your server's real IP:
http://your-server-ip:8080. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address. - Give it a minute after first deploy, gateway can take a while to initialise.
- Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g.
sudo ufw allow 8080
Image won't pull
Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull frozenmountain/liveswitch-gateway:latest
- "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses
latest, so try pinning a specific version instead. - "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with
docker loginto raise it. - "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with
docker system prune
"exec format error"
This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.
- Check yours with
uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.
Container keeps restarting
The always restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.
- Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
- Get the exit code with
docker inspect <container> --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}' - Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to
noso the failure stays visible.
Stack won't deploy
Compose stacks fail fast on small mistakes, and Portainer shows the reason just above the editor.
- YAML only accepts spaces for indentation, a single tab breaks the whole file.
Raise an issue
Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.
- Bug within the app: Open an issue within gateway's repo
- Template not working: Open an issue on portainer/templates
- This website not working: Open an issue on lissy93/portainer-templates
A Compose stack
LiveSwitch (stack) is a Compose stack, a set of containers (4 of them) defined in one file and brought up together by Portainer, then started and stopped as a single app.
The services
This stack is built from 4 containers that run side by side. Here's each one, with the image it runs and anything it waits for first:
gatewayrunsfrozenmountain/liveswitch-gateway:latestmediarunsfrozenmountain/liveswitch-media-server:latestredisrunsredispostgresrunspostgres
Ports
A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 8080:8080 means it's reachable on port 8080 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. Once it's running, open http://your-server-ip:8080 in a browser. It opens:
8080:8080, likely the web interface9090:90908443:844310443:104436379:63795432:5432
Environment variables
Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. LiveSwitch (stack) takes 4 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:
CONNECTIONSTRINGS:DEFAULT, defaults topostgres://postgres:[email protected]:5432/postgresCONNECTIONSTRINGS:CACHE, defaults toredis://127.0.0.1SERVICEBASEURL, defaults tohttp://127.0.0.1:8080POSTGRES_PASSWORD, pulled from your own environment
Restart policy
The restart policy here is always, so Docker brings LiveSwitch (stack) back up after a crash and again when the server reboots. Good for anything you want running around the clock. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).
Networking
Portainer puts these services on one shared private network, so they can find each other by name (like gateway) while only the ports above are open to you.
Platform
The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.
Portainer app templates
Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set LiveSwitch (stack) up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying LiveSwitch (stack) is a click rather than a wall of config.