Deployment Overview of VictoriaMetrics on Server¶

Prerequisites and Basic Requirements¶

To ensure a successful deployment, the following requirements must be met:

Operating System: A Linux-based system with Docker installed.
Privileges: Root or sudo access is required for directory creation and service management.
Docker Service: The docker service must be installed, started, and enabled to run on boot.
Ports: The following ports must be available and not blocked by a firewall:
80/tcp: For HTTP traffic (Certbot validation).
443/tcp: For HTTPS traffic.
8427/tcp: Internal authentication service.
8428/tcp: VictoriaMetrics internal API.

The application is accessible via a specific subdomain template based on the server ID.

Parameter	Value
Prefix	`victoriametrics`
Domain	`hostkey.in`
Full template	`victoriametrics{Server_ID}.hostkey.in`

The application data and configurations are organized in the following directory structure:

/root/victoria-metrics-data/: Main application directory containing configuration files and Docker Compose settings.
/root/victoria-metrics-data/authconfig.yml: Authentication configuration file.
/root/victoria-metrics-data/compose.yml: Docker Compose orchestration file.
/data/nginx/user_conf.d/: Nginx user configuration directory for proxying traffic.

The application is deployed using a combination of manual setup and Docker Compose:

Environment Setup: The system creates the necessary data directories in /root/victoria-metrics-data.
Configuration Generation: Configuration files for authentication (authconfig.yml) and orchestration (compose.yml) are generated in the application directory.
Volume Creation: A dedicated Docker volume named victoriametrics is created to ensure data persistence.
Container Deployment: The deployment uses docker compose within the /root/victoria-metrics-data directory to launch all required services.

Firewall: Only ports 80, 443, 8427, and 8428 are utilized.
SSL/TLS: SSL certificates are managed via Certbot and integrated through an Nginx proxy container.
Authentication: Access to the VictoriaMetrics API is controlled via vmauth, which uses a configuration file located at /root/victoria-metrics-data/authconfig.yml.

VictoriaMetrics utilizes Docker volumes for persistent storage of time-series data:

Storage Location: Data is stored in the victoriametrics Docker volume and mapped to /victoria-metrics inside the container.
Connection Method: The service is accessed internally via port 8428.

The deployment consists of three primary containers managed via Docker Compose:

Container Name	Image	Ports	Volumes	Environment Variables	Restart Policy
`nginx`	`jonasal/nginx-certbot:latest`	`80:80`, `443:443`	`nginx_secrets:/etc/letsencrypt`, `/data/nginx/user_conf.d:/etc/nginx/user_conf.d`	`[email protected]`	`unless-stopped`
`victoriametrics`	`victoriametrics/victoria-metrics:latest`	`8428:8428`	`/root/victoria-metrics-data:/victoria-metrics-data`, `victoriametrics:/victoria-metrics`	N/A	`unless-stopped`
`vmauth`	`victoriametrics/vmauth`	`8427:8427`	`/root/victoria-metrics-data:/root/victoria-metrics-data`	N/A	`unless-stopped`

The deployment performs the following specialized configuration steps:

Nginx Proxy Configuration: The system modifies the Nginx proxy configuration to route incoming traffic from the external domain through vmauth (port 8427) instead of directly to VictoriaMetrics.
Authentication Setup: A custom authconfig.yml is generated to define user access permissions and URL prefixes for the authentication layer.

To update the application, navigate to the deployment directory and perform a pull of the latest images:

cd /root/victoria-metrics-data
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

Component	Path
Docker Compose File	`/root/victoria-metrics-data/compose.yml`
Auth Configuration	`/root/victoria-metrics-data/authconfig.yml`
Persistent Data Volume	`victoriametrics` (Docker Managed)