Deployment Overview of Zammad on Server¶

Prerequisites and Basic Requirements¶

To ensure the successful deployment and operation of Zammad, the following system requirements must be met:

• Operating System: Ubuntu (based on the use of apt package management).

• Privileges: Root or sudo access is required for installing packages and managing Docker services.

• Domain Configuration: A valid domain name under the hostkey.in zone is required.

• Required Packages:

  • ca-certificates

  • curl

  • git

FQDN of the final panel on the hostkey.in domain¶

The application is accessible via a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) following this pattern: <prefix><Server ID>.hostkey.in

Where <prefix> is set to zammad.

File and Directory Structure¶

The deployment utilizes several key directories for configuration, source code, and SSL certificates:

Application installation process¶

The application is deployed using a containerized approach via Docker Compose v2. The deployment follows these steps:

1. Installation of the Docker Engine and the Docker Compose plugin.

2. Cloning the zammad-docker-compose repository into /root/zammad-docker-compose.

3. Configuration of environment variables within the .env file to support HTTPS and trusted proxies.

4. Orchestration of services using docker compose up -d.

Access Rights and Security¶

Security is managed through a combination of Nginx reverse proxying and SSL encryption:

• Firewall/Proxy: Nginx acts as a reverse proxy, forwarding traffic from the external port to the internal application container.

• SSL/TLS: Certbot is used to obtain and manage Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. Automatic redirection from HTTP to HTTPS is enabled.

• Trusted Proxies: The application is configured to trust 127.0.0.1/32 for proxy headers.

Docker Containers and Their Deployment¶

The deployment relies on Docker Compose to manage the Zammad stack. The following command is used to initialize the containers:

cd /root/zammad-docker-compose && docker compose up -d

Proxy Servers¶

Nginx is configured as a reverse proxy to handle incoming web traffic and terminate SSL connections.

Location of configuration files and data¶

The following files govern the behavior of the proxy and the application environment:

• Nginx Configuration: /etc/nginx/sites-available/zammad

• Docker Environment Variables: /root/zammad-docker-compose/.env

Available ports for connection¶

Starting, Stopping, and Updating¶

Service management is performed via Docker Compose within the application directory.

• Start/Restart Services:

  cd /root/zammad-docker-compose && docker compose up -d
  

• Stop/Recreate Containers:

  cd /root/zammad-docker-compose && docker compose down && docker compose up -d