How to install Portainer on synology / linux / vps

docker Aug 5, 2024

Portainer supports both Docker standalone installations and Docker Swarm clusters, making it a versatile tool for managing Docker environments.

Portainer Community Edition is a lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes and ACI environments. It is designed to be as simple to deploy as it is to use.^[1]

Screenshot 2024-08-05 170339.png

https://github.com/portainer/portainer ↩︎

Version used in this documentation

There can be slight differences on installation processes if you are on different versions or hardware

Application	Version
Debian	11
Synology DSM	7.2.1-69057 Update 4
Linux Docker	20.10.21
Synology Docker	20.10.23-1437
Docker Compose	1.29.2
Portainer	2.19.5

Prerequisites

Environments in the examples

Check these if you are not sure which environments you can safely change

Name	Mapped	Container
Container name	portainer
Container image	portainer/portainer-ce
Config directory mount	/volume1/docker/portainer	/data
Edge agent port	10002	8000
Https port	10001	9443
Http port	10000	9000

I use different mapped port with the container port only to showcase how to change port. You can definitely use the default container port instead of changing them.

How to install Portainer

This tutorial assume that you know the most basic of unix commands and server setup

On linux device

Prepare the directory and docker compose file

Prepare config directory for Portainer

sudo mkdir -p /volume1/docker/portainer

Create docker-compose.yml file

sudo nano /volume1/docker/portainer/docker-compose.yml

Fill the file with these:

Change every ${} to your values

version: "3.3"
services:
  portainer-ce:
    ports:
      - ${HTTP_PORT}:9000
      - ${HTTPS_PORT}:9443 # you can delete this entire line and portainer will still work
      - ${SSH_PORT_FOR_AGENT}:8000 # you can delete this entire line if you don't use portainer agent
    container_name: portainer
    restart: on-failure:5
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - ${PORTAINER_DATA_PATH}:/data
    image: portainer/portainer-ce

Save the file, after that go to where it is
```
cd /volume1/docker/portainer
```
Install Portainer using Docker Compose
```
sudo docker-compose up
```
If you have no reverse proxy setup for Portainer, you need to open up the port to access Portainer
```
sudo ufw allow 10000
```

On Synology NAS

If you can SSH to your synology, then it's always better to use the linux device method above

Using Synology Docker Wizard

In my opinion, installing a container using Synology Container Manager is less recommended. You may want to try installing your first container using CLI instead as it is more versatile, and it will teach you to configure your containers better. Check how to do it below

Prepare the directory

Create /volume1/docker/portainer directory.

The docker part is a shared directory, go to the Control Panel to create it then create portainer directory inside docker shared directory

Download Portainer image

Open up Container Manager application, go to the Registry tab, then search for portainer
Double click on the image named portainer/portainer-ce make sure the tag is latest then hit Select
Go to the Image tab and wait a couple minutes for the image to download, when it is done the burger icon should be all blue

Deploy Portainer

Double click the portainer/portainer-ce:latest, or right click then select Run
Fill the Container Name i.e. portainer
Make sure Enable auto-restart is checked then click Next

I did not check Enable web portal via Web Station because I'm not using it. You can check it to open Portainer using Synology Web Station
Under Port Settings, put your mapped port into each Local Port, i.e. 10002 to the left of 8000 and 10000 to the left of 9000, then click Next, you can delete unused ports
Under Volume Settings, click + Add Folder then pick the directory you created before i.e. /docker/10000-portainer, then put /data to the right side
Make sure Run this container after the wizard is finished is checked, then click Done

Using Synology CLI

In my opinion, installing Portainer using CLI is the best way to install it on Synology

Open Control Panel then open the Task Scheduler
Click Create then pick Scheduled Task then User-defined script
Pick a task name i.e. Install Portainer, choose root as user, then make sure that Enabled checkbox is unticked
Go to the Schedule tab, click on Run on the following date and pick Do not repeat in the lower dropdown list

Go to the Task Settings tab then paste the following codes to the User-defined script box

docker run -d \
  --name=portainer \ #<<< you can change that
  -p 10001:8000 \ #<<< you can change that
  -p 10000:9000 \ #<<< you can change that
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v /volume1/docker/10000-portainer:/data \ #<<< you can change that
  --restart=unless-stopped \
  portainer/portainer-ce

Save everything then right click the task and clik Run
Wait a couple minutes for the container to install. If you do not receive an error email then portainer will show in Synology Container Manager's Container tab with green dot in the status column