dokku-mysql VS dokku-letsencrypt

Now we have installed MySQL services and workbench on our local Windows machine. Next, let's install dokku-mysql plugin on our remote Dokku instance.

For my first article, I'll review all the steps required to setting up a new digital ocean Dokku Ubuntu droplet and hardening it. Throughout this process you will be picking up a few DevOps and Front-end skills to add to your toolset. By the end, you'll have your very own secured remote Dokku server to host your static site, apps, and database. Next time I'll cover installing Dokku mysql and a Strapi CMS on our new Dokku server.

Before we start, I assume you've already installed Dokku on your server, configured all the things properly, installed dokku-mysql, created a new database (ex: ghost-db), created a new app for Ghost, let's call it simply ghost and linked them.

dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-mysql.git mysql

# plugin installation requires root, hence the user change sudo dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt.git

downloads and installs dokku-letsencrypt on server

$ sudo dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt.git $ dokku config:set --global [email protected] $ dokku domains:set app-name your-domain.com $ dokku letsencrypt:enable app-name $ dokku letsencrypt:cron-job --add

You need SSL certificate for your website. With Dokku you can add it in several ways, using official Let's Encypt plugin, or using your own certificate, or using a Cloudflare SSL. Any of these do, but don't neglect this step.

There are env vars you need to configure so let’s encrypt knows your email address. The plugin docs are worth reading: https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt

# on Dokku host sudo dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt.git

Right now (when I wrote this post), there is no wildcard support from dokku-letsencrypt plugin. Luckily, Dokku itself can use certificates from other sources.

As you may have noticed, our application is available on our Dokku host now – but only in an unencrypted fashion (note the lack of https in the address bar). Thankfully, we live in the age of LetsEncrypt offering free TLS certificates, and Dokku makes it easy to enable automatic certificate retrieval and setup for our application via the dokku-letsencrypt plugin. I strongly recommend setting up this plugin so that people using our application can enjoy securely encrypted web-traffic. Once installed (see installation and initial setup instructions), we can enable the LetsEncrypt integration for our application with a single command: