Version: Jun 2, 2025

Docker Composer Site Side

Breakdown of the File

Services:

This section defines individual services (containers) you want Docker to run. Each service corresponds to a website.

WebSites: dreblowdesigns, mathsheetgen, dreblowandassociates

Each block under services: defines one site. Let's use one as an example:

dreblowdesigns:
    image: nginx:latest
    restart: always

• image: nginx:latest Tells Docker to use the official NGINX image (web server software) from Docker Hub.
• restart: always Ensures the container restarts if it crashes, or when Docker starts on reboot.

Volumes

volumes:
    - /srv/sites/dreblowdesigns.com:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro

• This maps a folder from your host system (/srv/sites/dreblowdesigns.com) into the container’s web root (/usr/share/nginx/html) in read-only mode (:ro).
• That’s how your actual HTML/CSS/JS content is served inside the container.

Environment Variables

environment:
- VIRTUAL_HOST=dreblowdesigns.com, www.dreblowdesigns.com
- LETSENCRYPT_HOST=dreblowdesigns.com, www.dreblowdesigns.com
- LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=####.#####@gmail.com

These are picked up by the nginx-proxy and acme-companion services you defined in the server-side Compose file:

• VIRTUAL_HOST: Tells nginx-proxy which hostnames should route traffic to this container.
• LETSENCRYPT_HOST: Tells acme-companion to request HTTPS certificates for these domains.
• LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL: Email to register with Let’s Encrypt in case of urgent SSL certificate notifications (masked here in the blog for privacy).

Networks

networks:
    - webproxy

• This connects the service to an external Docker network named webproxy. This shared network lets the site containers communicate with the proxy containers defined in your other docker-compose.yml.
• The bottom section makes this explicit:

networks:
  webproxy:
    external: true

Why This Works

• Automatic HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt
• Smart domain-to-container mapping
• One unified network with clean separation between infrastructure and content
• Easy to scale: just add more blocks like this!

The entire file

services:
  dreblowdesigns:
    image: nginx:latest
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /srv/sites/dreblowdesigns.com:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=dreblowdesigns.com, www.dreblowdesigns.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=dreblowdesigns.com, www.dreblowdesigns.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=####.#####@gmail.com                              # Or some email address
    networks:
      - webproxy

  mathsheetgen:
    image: nginx:latest
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /srv/sites/mathsheetgen.com:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=mathsheetgen.com, www.mathsheetgen.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=mathsheetgen.com, www.mathsheetgen.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=####.#####@gmail.com                              # Or some email address
    networks:
      - webproxy

  dreblowandassociates:
    image: nginx:latest
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /srv/sites/dreblowandassociates.com:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=dreblowandassociates.com, www.dreblowandassociates.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=dreblowandassociates.com, www.dreblowandassociates.com
      - LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=####.#####@gmail.com                              # Or some email address
    networks:
      - webproxy

networks:
  webproxy:
    external: true