FileRun on Docker

You may want to set up a file server like FileRun for any number of reasons. The main reason, I would think, would be so you can have your own Google Drive alternative that is under your control instead of Google’s.

FileRun claims to be “Probably the best File Manager in the world with desktop Sync and File Sharing,” but I think you’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself.

Just to be completely transparent here, I like FileRun, but there is a shortcoming that I hope they will eventually fix. That shortcoming is that there are some, in my opinion, very important settings that are locked away behind an Enterprise Licence requirement.

That aside, I really like the ease-of-use and flexibility of FileRun. So let’s take a look at it.

Prerequisites for FileRun in Docker

First things first, you’ll need a Docker server set up. Linode has made that process very simple and you can set one up for just a few bucks a month and can add a private IP address (for free) and backups for just a couple bucks more per month.

Another thing you’ll need is a domain name, which you can buy from almost anywhere online for a wide range of prices depending on where you make your purchase. Be sure to point the domains DNS settings to point to Linode. You can find more information about that here: https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/dns-manager/

You’ll also want a reverse proxy set up on your Docker Server so that you can do things like route traffic and manage SSLs on your server. I made a video about the process of setting up a Docker server with Portainer and a reverse proxy called Nginx Proxy Manager that you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oUjfsaR0NU

Once you’ve got your Docker server set up, you can begin the process of setting up your VaultWarden password manager on that server.

There are 2 primary ways you can do this:

In the command line via SSH.
In Portainer via the Portainer dashboard.

We’re going to take a look at how to do this in Portainer so that we can have a user interface to work with.

Head over to http://your-server-ip-address:9000 and get logged into Portainer with the credentials we setup in our previous post/video.

On the left side of the screen, we’re going to click the “Stacks” link and then, on the next page, click the “+ Add stack” buton.

This will bring up a page where you’ll enter the name of the stack. Below that that you can then copy and paste the following: