API

[ArtyomCZ]

Hi,

I wonder if there is any API, I haven't tried Dockge yet and I don't have much experience with docker.

My intention is to develop a SaaS, and for that, I'll require a dedicated container for each user. Dockge seems promising for container management, but I'm unsure if there's a method to create and oversee containers through an API rather than relying solely on the web interface.

[louislam]

I think you don't need Dockge. Dockge is literally just a docker compose wrapper with a fancy GUI.

If you are going to develop something else, why not just call docker compose up/down directly from your application.

[qroac]

I'd also like to have some functions available via API.
At the moment, I use dockge for manual management and overview of deployed stacks.

For Deployment in CI I have to perform steps via SSH on the machines that I'd very much like to handle via dockge API:

• Edit specific env variable for a service or in .env file
• Pull new image version
• Build services in compose file
• Restart specific stack service with the new image version (down; up -d)

[Gandalf-the-Blue]

Can I also add a use case of displaying basic stats such as active containers/stacks, inactive containers using the API so that dashboards such as homepage, dashy etc. can display the information.

[spupuz]

this is for sure the best use case for having api

[vednolacni]

+1

[ForsakenRei]

also wondering if stats API will be available.

[mgundelfinger]

My usecase for this would be to allow my Home Assistant to be able to access containers running on my docker host, I could add a button to start/stop a stack/container, as well as display the current status of it. With portainer this is doable, and pretty much the only thing I'm missing from portainer. Alternatively add ssh to the image so you can just execute the docker compose commands remotely.

[pops199]

An API will also be usefull for Homepage, Uptime Kuma already has the Widget, would be nice to see "Running" "Stopped" "Healthy" "Unhealthy" gethomepage/homepage#2350 (comment)

[pauli-principle]

Thats a pretty cool and useful feature

[suicidaleggroll]

Any update on this? Even just a basic read-only API which provides stats for the number of stacks and their state would be enough for integration into various dashboards. I like Dockge more than Portainer, but this is keeping me from switching.

[4r1-60ld]

Was also looking for this today. API for use for homepage, dashy etc would be a great addition to this app.

[ForsakenRei]

I think these API end points will definitely be helpful for a homepage deployment, too.

[yusuf-madkour]

@suicidaleggroll
If portainer already has that, may I ask what prompted you to switch to dockge in the first place?

I am considering switching to portainer and would appreciate if you could share your point of view.

[suicidaleggroll]

@suicidaleggroll If portainer already has that, may I ask what prompted you to switch to dockge in the first place?

I am considering switching to portainer and would appreciate if you could share your point of view.

Dockge has a better approach IMO - giving you a web UI that interfaces with your native environment, your directory structure, and invokes the same CLI commands you can run yourself. That allows you to use either the web UI or normal command line tools to manage your system interchangeably. With Portainer, you're stuck in their environment. You lose all native access to your containers and can ONLY manage them through the Portainer web UI. You can't even manage the filesystem yourself, you're stuck running everything through Portainer, and management of other Docker hosts on your network through Portainer is clunky and cumbersome while Dockge integrates everything together into a single interface.

I switched to Dockge a while back. Having an API would be nice, but I was able to work around all of those issues in other ways. Namely a custom Python script that scrapes Docker's native Prometheus integration and combines it with dockcheck.sh to provide all info on running/stopped/updateable containers via a REST API so I can pull it into Homepage.

[seaglade]

I have another use case for an API: I have a website which is built into a Docker container by a CICD job on my server. The image gets pushed to a private registry, and the Compose file for the project pulls it from that registry. Currently I have to manually hit the "Update" button in Dockge (or pull and re-up the stack from the CLI directly), which adds friction. If Dockge could have an API endpoint by which an authenticated client (via a bearer token maybe) could update a specific stack programmatically, I could add a curl step to my CICD pipeline to call that endpoint after pushing the image, making the entire process seamless to automate.

[sekiganou]

have you tried watchtower?

[Gamechiefx]

Any Update on this?

[non-bin]

Would love to have a Homepage widget

[BulldozerPete]

Same here

[Morenus77]

+1 for API.

Like many others here, the first use case for me would be a widget for Homepage: I already achieved this goal but with a workaround that uses external services... a direct API call would be the best solution.
(In this case I showed the status of some specific containers but someone else maybe just need the number of active/inactive/stopped ones).

[LukeA07]

Another +1. My usecase is a homepage widget also

[Nuffern]

I love the simplicity of Dockge, but since it doesn't have an API there is no easy way to show stats on a dashboard (i.e. Homepage). A basic API that gives you info about active and stopped containers would be much apricated.

[c4lliope]

Hello; I am building a -hodgepodge- of code for deploying on-premise programs.
Here is how I use dockge inside of microvm.nix.

This is complex and messy so far, but the crazy piece is, I can expose dockge to end users securely, because the full docker daemon (podman, really) is enclosed inside a microvm layer. Security grows in layers.

If you are going to develop something else, why not just call docker compose up/down directly from your application.

My consumer app is going to run on one VM, assigned one IP address, say 10.0.0.100.
This app is going to allow people to sign up for a subdomain, where I'll launch a dockge microvm.
Say the IP for this one is 10.0.1.42; the consumer app can reach this through a bridge network.

So, for N consumers I have N+1 VMs:
+1 for the consumer billing, sign-up, management plane.
N for the consumers, each running a dedicated docker socket and with scalable 9p.img volumes bound to /var

I need some auth'd API layer assigned to each of the N docker sockets, so I can combine dockge and pre-rolled compose.yml apps. I need to read through the other comments here, but I think the API should focus more on docker-compose than plain docker. As an example, I'd like to upload a full compose.yml, and then manage the corresponding deployment using up/down/restart/ps / so on.

I'll likely prototype my use cases through ssh before building an API; although for many people demanding similar use cases, linux permissions make this an inaccessible or grueling choice.

[c4lliope]

pending research:

• expose docker.sock through an auth'd http socket?
  • https://docs.docker.com/reference/api/engine/
  • https://docs.docker.com/reference/api/engine/version/v1.51/
• podman remote api
  • https://liquidat.wordpress.com/2020/04/20/howto-using-the-new-podman-api/
  • https://medium.com/@pingkunga/how-to-enable-remote-api-in-podman-e32cede96309
  • https://podman.io/blogs/2020/07/01/rest-versioning.html
  • https://projectatomic.io/blog/2018/05/podman-varlink/