dokku

dokku plugin:command [app] [arguments]Most commands follow a `namespace:verb` naming scheme, where the namespace is the plugin that provides them.

Dokku is a self-hosted Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that implements a Heroku-like workflow on a single machine. Adding the server as a git remote and pushing to it is the whole deploy: Dokku detects the application type, builds an image, and cuts traffic over to the new containers.Applications are built either with Herokuish buildpacks, a Dockerfile, or Cloud Native Buildpacks, and are then run as Docker containers behind an nginx proxy that Dokku configures for you. A `Procfile` defines the process types, which ps:scale turns into container counts.Nearly everything beyond the core is a plugin: `dokku-postgres`, `dokku-mysql`, `dokku-redis`, and friends provide backing services that are linked into an app as environment variables, while `dokku-letsencrypt` automates TLS certificates. This keeps the base install small while covering most of what Heroku offers.

apps:create app / apps:list / apps:destroy app

Create, list, and destroy applications.

Rename an application and rebuild it.

Manage environment variables. Setting or unsetting restarts the app unless --no-restart is passed.

Scale a process type from the Procfile to n containers.

Restart the running containers, rebuild the app from source, or stop it.

Show application logs. -t follows them, -n N limits the number of lines.

Manage the virtual hosts routed to the app.

Request and install a Let's Encrypt certificate (requires the `dokku-letsencrypt` plugin).

Map an external port onto a container port.

Run a one-off command in a new container from the app's image.

Open a shell inside a running container.

Create a database service and expose its credentials to an app. Equivalents exist for `mysql`, `redis`, `mongo`, and others, each from its own plugin.

Install and list plugins. Must be run as root.

Print the installed Dokku version.

Dokku targets a single host; there is no built-in clustering or zero-downtime failover across machines, and scaling means more containers on the same box. It expects a fresh server, since it takes ownership of nginx and Docker configuration. Plugin commands must be installed as root even though app commands run as the `dokku` user. Zero-downtime deploys depend on correctly configured `CHECKS`, otherwise a push briefly drops requests, and builds can be memory-hungry enough to fail on the smallest VPS sizes without swap.

Dokku was created by Jeff Lindsay in 2013 as a "docker-powered mini-Heroku" written in a few hundred lines of shell. It quickly outgrew that, and maintenance passed to Jose Diaz-Gonzalez, who still leads the project. It remains one of the most widely used self-hosted PaaS options, and its git-push workflow is deliberately close to Heroku's so that apps can move between the two.

docker(1), git(1), heroku(1), caprover(1)

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