How to Self-Host Outline Alongside Caddy

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Four days. That’s how long it took for me to self-host Outline and connect it to Caddy on my server. I’ve looked through a bunch of Outline’s and Caddy’s GitHub issues and discussions, StackOverflow, and their docs. I even changed my web server from Apache2 to Caddy.

I did try out Bookstack and Docmost halfway through. Bookstack is the easiest to get up and running, but there were no real-time collaborative features or conflict resolution. While Docmost… I had some problems running it over HTTPS.

Some problems that I ran into while I was installing Outline in no particular order were:

Safe to say, I had one hell of a time installing Outline.

Tested on

Installation Steps

Step 1: Install Docker

If you haven’t already installed Docker, here’s how to install Docker in one command in Linux Mint or for other distros, here.

Step 2: Install Caddy (Docker)

If you haven’t had the Caddy container running, here’s how to install it.

Step 3: Install Outline (Docker)

Here’s a command to download the docker-compose.yml and .env files rather than copy and paste (you’ll still need to set it up though):

curl -L s.revonzev.com/install-outline-docker-curl | bash

Here’s the docker-compose for my Outline:

services:
  outline_redis:
    image: redis
    restart: always
    container_name: outline_redis
    networks:
      - outline-internal


  outline_postgres:
    image: postgres:15
    restart: always
    container_name: outline_postgres
    security_opt:
      - label:disable
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      - POSTGRES_USER=outline
      - POSTGRES_DB=outline
    networks:
      - outline-internal
    volumes:
      - ./container-data/db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro


  outline:
    image: outlinewiki/outline:latest
    user: root
    restart: always
    container_name: outline
    command: sh -c "yarn start --env=production-ssl-disabled"
    depends_on:
      - outline_postgres
      - outline_redis
    environment:
      - WEBSOCKET=true
      - FORCE_HTTPS=false
      - PGSSLMODE=disable
      - SECRET_KEY=${SECRET_KEY}
      - UTILS_SECRET=${UTILS_SECRET}
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://outline:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@outline_postgres:5432/outline
      - REDIS_URL=redis://outline_redis:6379
      - URL=${WIKI_URL}
      - PORT=80
      - FILE_STORAGE=local
      - FILE_STORAGE_UPLOAD_MAX_SIZE=26214400
      - FILE_STORAGE_IMPORT_MAX_SIZE=26214400
      - FILE_STORAGE_WORKSPACE_IMPORT_MAX_SIZE=26214400
      - DISCORD_CLIENT_ID=${DISCORD_CLIENT_ID}
      - DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET=${DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET}
      - DISCORD_SERVER_ID=${DISCORD_SERVER_ID}
    networks:
      - outline-internal
      - reverseproxy-nw
    volumes:
      - ./container-data/data:/var/lib/outline/data


networks:
  outline-internal:
  reverseproxy-nw:
    external: true

The .env file that’s in the same directory as the docker-compose:

#secrets/passwords
SECRET_KEY=
UTILS_SECRET=
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=

#domains
WIKI_URL=http://outline.localhost

#oidc information
DISCORD_CLIENT_ID=
DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET=
DISCORD_SERVER_ID=

You can get the SECRET_KEY and UTILS_SECRET by running this in the terminal:

openssl rand -hex 32

Add your own password for the Postgres database and change your Outline URL to your domain if you have one ready for it.

I use Discord’s OAuth to authenticate into my outline, here’s how to do it in order:

• Go to Discord’s developer website, here
• Login with your Discord
• Click on the New Application button
• Put in the name of the application, I put in outline
• Click on the check button to accept Discord’s Developer Terms of Service and Developer Policy
• Click on the Create Button
• go to the OAuth2 in the SETTINGS on the left side bar
• Copy the CLIENT ID
• Paste the CLIENT ID at the end of the DISCORD_CLIENT_ID= inside of the .env file
• Click the Reset Secret button on your application’s OAuth2 settings in the Discord developer website
• Click the Yes, do it! button
• Enter your Discord password
• Click the Submit button
• Copy the CLIENT SECRET
• Paste the CLIENT SECRET at the end of the DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET= inside the .env file
• On your application’s OAuth2 settings in the Discord developer website add a Redirect to http://outline.localhost/auth/discord.callback you can change the http://outline.localhost to your Outline URL
• Click on the Save Changes button

Add Outline to Caddyfile, you can change the http://outline.localhost to your Outline URL:

http://outline.localhost {
    reverse_proxy outline
}

After all that, run Outline with Docker:

docker compose up -d

Then go to outline.localhost and login with your Discord. That’s it. Done.

Here’s a link to the tutorial I found most useful in installing Outline (although I still got errors when following it, mostly with MinIO): s.revonzev.com/gurucomputing-outline-tutorial

I hope you find this helpful because I certainly would.