DriverVault/Docker

DriverVault — Docker (multi-container stack)

Three containers — PocketBase, API Server, Web App — on one compose network. This is the deployment to use unless you specifically want everything in a single image; for that see ../Docker-AIO.

Browser ─► Web App BFF (:8090) ──/api/*──► API Server (:8080) ─► PocketBase (:8070)

Only the Web App port is meant to be public. The API Server and the PocketBase admin UI are published for convenience and, in the prod file, bound to 127.0.0.1 by default.

File	Use
docker-compose.yml	builds from source in this repo — for development and local testing
docker-compose.prod.yml	pulls prebuilt images from the registry — for deployment
.env.example / .env.prod.example	copy to .env for the matching compose file
pocketbase/	the PocketBase image (official release binary on alpine)

Run it

cd Docker
cp .env.example .env        # then edit — PB_ADMIN_* have no safe defaults
docker compose up -d --build

Production, from the registry:

cp .env.prod.example .env   # then edit
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Then: web app on http://host:8090/, the API Server's superadmin panel on http://host:8080/, PocketBase admin on http://host:8070/_/.

First boot

Both steps are idempotent, so restarts and upgrades are safe:

1. PocketBase upserts its superuser from PB_ADMIN_EMAIL / PB_ADMIN_PASSWORD. This is the only way to create the first superuser — the REST API cannot bootstrap it. The API Server then authenticates with the same credentials.
2. The API Server creates any missing collections and reconciles existing ones, then creates the first app superadmin from DRIVERVAULT_SUPERADMIN_EMAIL / _PASSWORD if no such user exists.

Leave PB_BOOTSTRAP at true, including across upgrades. A release can add collections or fields the server needs, and a stack that skipped the bootstrap never gets them. The API Server self-heals exactly one thing — app_settings, the collection holding the plugin settings, which it creates on demand because it cannot serve the plugin panel without it. Every other schema change still depends on this flag, so turn it off only for a database you know already matches the release you are running.

No manual setup-pocketbase.mjs step is needed here — the server runs the same schema reconcile itself.

Volumes

Volume	Holds
pb_data	the PocketBase SQLite database and uploaded files — everything that persists

One volume, because the API Server keeps no state on disk. Plugin enable-state and global config live in the database like the rest of the settings, so backing up pb_data backs up the whole stack. It defaults to a Docker-managed named volume; set PB_DATA to an absolute host path in the prod file for a bind mount instead. PocketBase runs as root, so a root-owned host directory is fine.

One thing does not persist: the API Server panel's Settings → PocketBase and Settings → Web App screens apply immediately but only for the life of the container. Set POCKETBASE_URL, PB_ADMIN_EMAIL / PB_ADMIN_PASSWORD, WEBAPP_URL and CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS in .env to change them permanently — in this stack the compose environment wins over anything the panel writes.

File storage (SeaweedFS / S3)

Uploaded files — document scans, service and refill receipts, workshop invoices, part photos — live inside pb_data by default, next to the database. Two further compose files put them in an S3 bucket instead, so the blobs and the database can be sized, backed up and moved independently. Nothing else changes: an attachment has always been fetched through the API Server (GET /api/service-records/{id}/file), never from a storage URL, so the Web App, the phone app and the Home Assistant plugin cannot tell the difference.

Each shape is one self-contained compose file — nothing to layer, nothing to remember — with an .env example of the same name:

Shape	From the registry	From source
Local storage — the default, unchanged	docker-compose.prod.yml	docker-compose.yml
SeaweedFS in this stack	docker-compose.prod.seaweedfs.yml	docker-compose.seaweedfs.yml
SeaweedFS, split into its roles	docker-compose.prod.seaweedfs.split.yml	docker-compose.seaweedfs.split.yml
An S3 endpoint outside it	docker-compose.prod.s3.yml	docker-compose.s3.yml

So docker-compose.prod.seaweedfs.yml is configured from .env.prod.seaweedfs.example, docker-compose.s3.yml from .env.s3.example, and so on:

cp .env.prod.seaweedfs.example .env    # then edit it — PB_S3_* have no defaults
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.seaweedfs.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.seaweedfs.yml up -d

Set PB_S3_ACCESS_KEY and PB_S3_SECRET first — both storage files refuse to start without them. The SeaweedFS ones add a seaweedfs container (master, volume, filer and S3 gateway in one process, on its own seaweed_data volume) plus a one-shot seaweedfs-init that creates the bucket, because PocketBase never issues a CreateBucket of its own. The external-S3 ones add no containers at all: set PB_S3_ENDPOINT, and create the bucket yourself.

Split SeaweedFS

weed server -s3 runs master, volume, filer and gateway as four goroutines in one process. The .split. files run them as four containers, plus a fifth: the SeaweedFS admin UI on port 23646, where the cluster can be inspected and — under Object Store → Users — further S3 identities minted and revoked. Split also gets you per-role restarts and upgrades, per-role Prometheus metrics, and room to add a second volume server later.

Identities work differently there, and it matters. SeaweedFS reads credentials from, in descending priority: an -s3.config file, the filer's IAM store, then AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY — and a higher source replaces a lower one rather than adding to it. The single-process files use the env vars, which is why nothing else may write identities there: the first user added in a panel would displace PocketBase's key. So in the split files seaweedfs-init seeds PocketBase's identity into the filer's store instead — the same store the admin UI writes — and the gateway runs with no config file at all. One source of truth, PocketBase's key visible in the panel beside every other, and new keys picked up without a restart. Rotating PB_S3_SECRET in .env and restarting updates that identity in place.

Set SEAWEED_ADMIN_PASSWORD: weed admin serves the panel with no authentication when it is empty, and a panel that can mint bucket credentials is the bucket. In the prod file it is bound to loopback like PB_BIND and API_BIND, so a remote host needs SEAWEED_ADMIN_BIND=0.0.0.0 behind the same reverse proxy. That file publishes nothing for master, volume and filer — the volume server serves file content by id with no authentication of any kind, and the admin UI already shows what those ports would.

Switching between docker-compose.seaweedfs.yml and its .split. twin needs no migration: master, volume and filer share one /data mount, which is exactly the layout weed server -dir=/data writes.

On every boot the API Server's bootstrap writes PocketBase's Files storage settings from those variables, then asks PocketBase to prove it can reach the bucket. Watch for it in the log:

[api] bootstrap: ✓ file storage → S3 (drivervault at http://seaweedfs:8333)
[api] bootstrap: ✓ S3 storage reachable

A boot that finds the settings already correct logs • file storage already on S3 and writes nothing.

Two things to know before turning it on:

• Existing files are not migrated. PocketBase copies nothing when the setting flips, so attachments uploaded before the switch stop resolving. Copy pb_data/storage/<collectionId>/<recordId>/<file> into the bucket root, keeping that layout, before enabling it — or start from a stack with no attachments.
• Going back to the plain compose file is not an off switch. It leaves PocketBase pointed at the bucket, deliberately: files already written there are reachable only while it is. Move them back and turn it off in PocketBase's own admin UI. For the same reason a rotation of PB_S3_SECRET alone is invisible to the bootstrap — PocketBase masks the stored secret on read — so change another PB_S3_* value alongside it, or set it in the admin UI.

Charger control (OCPP)

Chargers in own/proxy mode dial in to /ocpp/{serial}, authenticating with a per-charger control token in an OCPP Basic-auth header. Two ports answer that path: the API Server's own, and the Web App's, whose BFF proxies /ocpp/ through. The second one matters because it is the address the panel hands out — the endpoint is derived from the host the panel itself was reached on, which is the Web App, unless OCPP_PUBLIC_URL says otherwise.

A plaintext ws:// puts the control token on the wire in the clear, so OCPP_REQUIRE_TLS defaults to true and non-TLS connections are rejected. OCPP_REQUIRE_TLS=false is for a trusted network you own end to end.

With a public hostname and TLS

Nothing in this stack terminates TLS. Put your own reverse proxy in front of the Web App port, give it a certificate and a hostname, and set four things by hand:

# in .env
OCPP_PUBLIC_URL=wss://drivervault.example.com
OCPP_REQUIRE_TLS=true
CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS=https://drivervault.example.com
TRUST_FORWARDED_PROTO=true

TRUST_FORWARDED_PROTO is the easy one to miss: without it the Web App's BFF overwrites the proxy's X-Forwarded-Proto with its own plaintext hop and every charger is rejected as insecure. Only set it when that proxy really is the only way in — otherwise a charger could claim wss over a plaintext connection.

Point the charger's OCPP backend at the endpoint the panel then shows, with the control token as its authorization key. The charger has to resolve that hostname too: behind NAT that usually means hairpin NAT, or a split-DNS entry pointing the name at the LAN address.

Notes

• docker-compose.yml builds the API Server and Web App from ../API Server and ../Web App, so run it from this directory with the repo checked out.
• The Web App's Vue bundle is built with an empty VITE_API_BASE, so the browser uses same-origin /api and the BFF proxies it — no CORS in play.
• CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS therefore only matters if a browser calls the API Server directly. Native mobile apps are not subject to CORS at all.