Continuwuity for Docker

Docker

To run Continuwuity with Docker, you can either build the image yourself or pull it from a registry.

Use a registry

OCI images for Continuwuity are available in the registries listed below.

Use

docker image pull $LINK

to pull it to your machine.

Run

When you have the image, you can simply run it with

docker run -d -p 8448:6167 \
    -v db:/var/lib/continuwuity/ \
    -e CONTINUWUITY_SERVER_NAME="your.server.name" \
    -e CONTINUWUITY_ALLOW_REGISTRATION=false \
    --name continuwuity $LINK

or you can use Docker Compose.

The -d flag lets the container run in detached mode. You may supply an optional continuwuity.toml config file, the example config can be found here. You can pass in different env vars to change config values on the fly. You can even configure Continuwuity completely by using env vars. For an overview of possible values, please take a look at the docker-compose.yml file.

If you just want to test Continuwuity for a short time, you can use the --rm flag, which cleans up everything related to your container after you stop it.

Docker-compose

If the docker run command is not suitable for you or your setup, you can also use one of the provided docker-compose files.

Depending on your proxy setup, you can use one of the following files:

• If you already have a traefik instance set up, use docker-compose.for-traefik.yml
• If you don't have a traefik instance set up and would like to use it, use docker-compose.with-traefik.yml
• If you want a setup that works out of the box with caddy-docker-proxy, use docker-compose.with-caddy.yml and replace all example.com placeholders with your own domain
• For any other reverse proxy, use docker-compose.yml

When picking the Traefik-related compose file, rename it to docker-compose.yml, and rename the override file to docker-compose.override.yml. Edit the latter with the values you want for your server.

When picking the caddy-docker-proxy compose file, it's important to first create the caddy network before spinning up the containers:

docker network create caddy

After that, you can rename it to docker-compose.yml and spin up the containers!

Additional info about deploying Continuwuity can be found here.

Build

Official Continuwuity images are built using Docker Buildx and the Dockerfile found at docker/Dockerfile. This approach uses common Docker tooling and enables efficient multi-platform builds.

The resulting images are widely compatible with Docker and other container runtimes like Podman or containerd.

The images do not contain a shell. They contain only the Continuwuity binary, required libraries, TLS certificates, and metadata. Please refer to the docker/Dockerfile for the specific details of the image composition.

To build an image locally using Docker Buildx, you can typically run a command like:

# Build for the current platform and load into the local Docker daemon
docker buildx build --load --tag continuwuity:latest -f docker/Dockerfile .

# Example: Build for specific platforms and push to a registry.
# docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64,linux/arm64 --tag registry.io/org/continuwuity:latest -f docker/Dockerfile . --push

# Example: Build binary optimized for the current CPU
# docker buildx build --load --tag continuwuity:latest --build-arg TARGET_CPU=native -f docker/Dockerfile .

Refer to the Docker Buildx documentation for more advanced build options.

Run

If you have already built the image or want to use one from the registries, you can start the container and everything else in the compose file in detached mode with:

docker compose up -d

Note: Don't forget to modify and adjust the compose file to your needs.

Use Traefik as Proxy

As a container user, you probably know about Traefik. It is an easy-to-use reverse proxy for making containerized apps and services available through the web. With the two provided files, docker-compose.for-traefik.yml (or docker-compose.with-traefik.yml) and docker-compose.override.yml, it is equally easy to deploy and use Continuwuity, with a small caveat. If you have already looked at the files, you should have seen the well-known service, which is the small caveat. Traefik is simply a proxy and load balancer and cannot serve any kind of content. For Continuwuity to federate, we need to either expose ports 443 and 8448 or serve two endpoints: .well-known/matrix/client and .well-known/matrix/server.

With the service well-known, we use a single nginx container that serves those two files.

Alternatively, you can use Continuwuity's built-in delegation file capability. Set up the delegation files in the configuration file, and then proxy paths under /.well-known/matrix to continuwuity. For example, the label traefik.http.routers.continuwuity.rule=(Host(`matrix.ellis.link`) || (Host(`ellis.link`) && PathPrefix(`/.well-known/matrix`))) does this for the domain ellis.link.

Voice communication

See the TURN page.