The Cloudron User Repository - CUR

The what?
CUR is deviated from AUR - Arch User Repository

AUR is awesome and makes it very easy for Arch Linux Users to install software from other users.

In similar fashion I would love such a feature in Cloudron.
I packaged:

• Greenlight
• Valheim Dedicated Server
• FiveM GTA V Multiplayer Server

From my 3 packaged apps only Greenlight made it into the app-store. Yet!
Why did Valheim and FiveM did not make it?
Simply put, the lack of users testing the app and reporting back.

Does Cloudron need an CUR?

Arch Linux is loved for the AUR and I am sure that CUR would also have this effect for Cloudron.
I believe many users do not test apps since they are used to the app-store and even the thought of touching the shell to install a community app with the cloudron-cli is very spooky to the targeted end-user of cloudron.
Especially on productive systems doing such thing is a no-go, since you want stable prod which does not fail you.

Now imagine a CUR.
With a simple click in the setting you can enable the CUR and can install a community app to test and give feedback.

This would decrease the barrier for end-users and @appdev(s).

This could also decrease work for maintaining apps if they stay community apps and are not suited for the general Cloudron app-store.
CUR should be excluded from Cloudron Support for obvious reasons.

I would love to get some thoughts on this.

Cheers,
Elias

(ps: I am aware of many side effects of AUR/CUR and stale unmaintained packages, but AUR still rocks )

https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/

This game got recently released on steam and hit quite the trend.

https://steamdb.info/app/892970/graphs/

Having this server as an app would be nice.

And the work is already done!

https://git.cloudron.io/BrutalBirdie/valheim-gameserver-app

Needs some fine work with doc, screenshots and all.

But it's live and running at https://valheim.deadsec.net/

@uiguy okay lets start

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I appreciate that there is the package maintenance aspect, but from what I have seen about the support structure, there seem to only be 2/3 guys supporting the maintenance... how can this be enough to support an entire app ecosystem

Everyone having the APP DEV to their name is a Cloudron App Developer, so in extend a supporter of the ecosystem.
For example I am the maintenance guy of the Greenlight app.
My job circles around Greenlight and BigBlueButton as well. So its in my own best interest to provide updates which just works without any hustle since I have a lot of Greenlights running for customers and doing something that does NOT work effects my own work

Another example would be Dolibarr from @erics who is a developer of Dolibarr.

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I am battling to see why we would rely on cloudron and the associated app store is quite limited as opposed to something like running docker direct?

Reliability and Repeatable.
I have restored multible Cloudrons from full backups, single app backups and literally never had it fail me.
Having the option to roll back to the previous version with 1-Click. What a dream!
Not to mention the package / backup policy to minimize the backup footprint.
For example my self maintained Valheim Gameserver App where we discuss about what is backup worthy.

Having the option to sync Cloudron to an external LDAP also just adds another cherry on top.
Having multible Cloudrons synced to a central LDAP. Sweet.
User und Customer management from 1 place deployed to X Servers with Groups and Permissions.

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I guess, what I am in need of, is some education as to why I would advise we invest in cloudron when we could simply deploy docker with something like portainer and watchtower for package maintenance?

I don't mean to sound negative at all, but I simply want to understand what the value proposition is, especially if I have to compare the available packages on docker vs cloudron?

That is the best part, you don't have to!
You can make your own app, you are NOT limited.
The so called gilded cage with Cloudron is the knowledge you wish to have about the system.
Gitlab of every app https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron

There is more which I could mention, but these are just some thoughts of mine.
Check out this topic where people tell what are your favourite things features about cloudron

@jlx89 I think this is what you are looking for.

https://docs.cloudron.io/backups/#import-app-backup

I would like someone to review my greenlight-app.
Just heads up this is my first app for Cloudron so I expect some issues but I will be happy to fix and learn from them.

1. Community behind Cloudron (Devs / Forum / Community)
2. click restore / backups ! reliable backups !
3. LDAP Integration

I can understand the wish for a chat, but I agree with @nebulon and everyone else endorsing the official forum.

Having the conversation in the official forum has many benefits.

Lets just switch into the mindset of a new Cloudron user / developer.

Just as an example:

• I need the lamp app but with php 5.X.
• Why is there no php 5 lamp app?
• How can I create a custom php 5 app?

What do most people do? They will type that question into a search engine.

Chat vs. Forum

If this discussion would take place in the chat, there would be no way for a new user to find public and easy access to that information about this issue/question.
How should they know they need to go threw a chat with X people talking about all different kind of topics.
Also you lock this information behind a software like matrix, rocketchat, slack, matermost yada yada.

New users want answers which are accessible without needing to sign up for anything.

Compared to an open discussion in the forum, which will be scraped by search engines and will be publicly available with no need to sign up or do anything to access this information.

IMHO chat is nice, but when using one there has to be a policy where findings and solutions must be also published in this forum.
And enforcing such a policy or even establish such will be hard.

That's just what I have in mind about a chat.

Cheers

@jordanurbs said in Can we have a "Freelance Work" group on the forum please?:

Yes please! I need help installing forks of certain apps as custom cloudron apps. I have the skillset to figure it out eventually, just not the time.

Because of that, i would love to throw someone a little money to help get me started.

For future readers:

This doc explains what is needed - https://docs.cloudron.io/custom-apps/tutorial/

TL;DR

• Create an account on DockerHub - https://hub.docker.com/
• Go to your Cloudron instance https://my.domain.tld/#/settings and configure the Private Docker Registry Server: docker.io and your login details
• Install the cloudron cli on your local machine

  sudo npm install -g cloudron
  

• Get your forked app

  git clone https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/tutorial-nodejs-app nodejs-app
  

• Build the image and push it

  # enter app directory
  $ cd nodejs-app
  
  # build the app
  $ docker build -t username/nodejs-app:1.0.0 .
  
  # push the image. if the push fails, you have to 'docker login' with your username
  $ docker push username/nodejs-app:1.0.0
  

• Install

  cloudron install --image username/nodejs-app:1.0.0
  

Done.
For further information please visit the official documentation.

@d19dotca

Update. I have finished my mail server name change.

All the dns records where updated automatically, even the custom MX record on namecheap if it existed before.

The one thing that confused me second was the PTR record aka. reverse dns.

Just went to hetzner and fixed that. All working no problems.

I am currently working on the greenlight Cloudron App for BigBlueButton.
So far the basic functionality is working fine but the ldap-auth is giving me trouble.

Right now the /app/code/bin/start script writes these variables

sed -i -e "s/LDAP_SERVER=.*/LDAP_SERVER=$CLOUDRON_LDAP_SERVER/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_PORT=.*/LDAP_PORT=$CLOUDRON_LDAP_PORT/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_BASE=.*/LDAP_BASE=$CLOUDRON_LDAP_USERS_BASE_DN/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_BIND_DN=.*/LDAP_BIND_DN=$CLOUDRON_LDAP_BIND_DN/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_PASSWORD=.*/LDAP_PASSWORD=$CLOUDRON_LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD=/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_METHOD=.*/LDAP_METHOD=plain/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_UID=.*/LDAP_UID=cn/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_AUTH=.*/LDAP_AUTH=simple/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_FILTER=.*/LDAP_FILTER=\(\&\(objectclass=user\)\(\|\(username=%uid\)\(mail=%uid\)\)\)/g" /app/data/.env \
&& sed -i -e "s/LDAP_ATTRIBUTE_MAPPING=.*/LDAP_ATTRIBUTE_MAPPING=uid=uid;name=displayname;email=mail;nickname=givenName;/g" /app/data/.env

But the LDAP Login fails.

INFO: [af608168-79eb-41e2-818c-1e514f0306bd] method=POST path=/auth/ldap format=html controller=SessionsController action=ldap status=302 duration=17.26 view=0.00 db=0.71 location=https://greenlight.stage.gzevd.de/ldap_signin host=greenlight 
INFO: [70994248-8131-4f51-bfdb-db159292bca0] method=GET path=/ldap_signin format=html controller=SessionsController action=ldap_signin status=200 duration=21.65 view=15.03 db=0.86 host=greenlight 

Maybe someone can help out?

I just pushed my work here: https://git.cloudron.io/BrutalBirdie/greenlight-app
ps: Please ignore my .gitlab-ci.yml this is for my own gitlab for deploying and testing the App.

EDIT:
Thanks @nebulon
The LDAP_UID was wrong. Has to be username
And the Filter can be deleted.
Pushed.

@ei8fdb the error is what it reads usr/bin/influxd: file does not exist
The file or path does not exist.

https://git.cloudron.io/doodlemania2/influxdb/-/blob/master/Dockerfile

COPY --from=final /usr/bin/influxd /app/code/influxd
COPY --from=final /usr/bin/influx /app/code/influx

I assume @doodlemania2 has influxdb installed locally and that's why he used these paths to copy the binary files.
Also binary files have no place in git so it's kinda understandable.

You can download the files here https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v2.0/get-started/?t=Linux

@marcusquinn Figures
I was just reading the names and then the . struck me.
Love It.

@marcusquinn Ah yes the self-explanatory ...

.

app.

Mine is even worse:

@jlx89 I think this is what you are looking for.

https://docs.cloudron.io/backups/#import-app-backup

@andres-moya The api doc is also kinda outdated

For example I wanted to Update some apps via API.
Nothing mentioned about that in the API doc.
But if you can read code, you can find the functions.

https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/cloudron-cli/-/blob/master/src/actions.js#L750

 url = `https://${adminFqdn}/api/v1/apps/${app.id}/update?access_token=${token}`;

By the way @staff is it possible as a community contributor to update the API Doc with a PR?

Super strange.
I now tried a single app backup with the lock file in place and no problem.

I will now enable auto backup for this app again and see if the full system backup gets stuck again.

scratches had

@girish tar worked without a problem with the console.

Also send you the lag as file in chat.

https://paste.cloudron.dev/gofuzafiwu.sql

@uiguy okay lets start

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I appreciate that there is the package maintenance aspect, but from what I have seen about the support structure, there seem to only be 2/3 guys supporting the maintenance... how can this be enough to support an entire app ecosystem

Everyone having the APP DEV to their name is a Cloudron App Developer, so in extend a supporter of the ecosystem.
For example I am the maintenance guy of the Greenlight app.
My job circles around Greenlight and BigBlueButton as well. So its in my own best interest to provide updates which just works without any hustle since I have a lot of Greenlights running for customers and doing something that does NOT work effects my own work

Another example would be Dolibarr from @erics who is a developer of Dolibarr.

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I am battling to see why we would rely on cloudron and the associated app store is quite limited as opposed to something like running docker direct?

Reliability and Repeatable.
I have restored multible Cloudrons from full backups, single app backups and literally never had it fail me.
Having the option to roll back to the previous version with 1-Click. What a dream!
Not to mention the package / backup policy to minimize the backup footprint.
For example my self maintained Valheim Gameserver App where we discuss about what is backup worthy.

Having the option to sync Cloudron to an external LDAP also just adds another cherry on top.
Having multible Cloudrons synced to a central LDAP. Sweet.
User und Customer management from 1 place deployed to X Servers with Groups and Permissions.

@uiguy said in How to Take Cloudron Even Further:

I guess, what I am in need of, is some education as to why I would advise we invest in cloudron when we could simply deploy docker with something like portainer and watchtower for package maintenance?

I don't mean to sound negative at all, but I simply want to understand what the value proposition is, especially if I have to compare the available packages on docker vs cloudron?

That is the best part, you don't have to!
You can make your own app, you are NOT limited.
The so called gilded cage with Cloudron is the knowledge you wish to have about the system.
Gitlab of every app https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron

There is more which I could mention, but these are just some thoughts of mine.
Check out this topic where people tell what are your favourite things features about cloudron

@girish after your latest update for the prometheus app I came back to this issue. (thanks for the update again)

It seems like this issue still persists and it seems to be the 0 byte lock file in /app/data/runtime of the prometheus app.
This lock file is auto generated on every app restart, so having automated backups enabled with this app blocks the whole backup process of the system.

I just tested a normal backup of the single app with lock file in place and it got stuck pretty much immediate.
Then I removed the lock file and the single app backup worked.
I am now testing a full system backup with the lock file removed.
edit:
Yep full backup now working as well.

Did anyone of the @appdev had this issue as well if you use Prometheus with tgz backups?

If this issue persist and it can be replicated with literally every app restart I think a startup check for this file (and deletion) could solve this.

Will do some more testing and research.

@girish On it.

Neat! This fixed it. Big thanks for the uddate.