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Installing Zitadel with Docker behind traefik

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By KD Puvvadi
5 min read

Wanted an Open-Source Self-Hosted Identity provider for my homelab. Tried and tired of lot of them but Zitadel solved lot of my problems. Documentation is bit spotty and as I’m writing this, stable version is having problems with traefik and I’m going with latest version(v2.48.3).

Networks

In my homelab, docker server is running traefik with network proxy. We don’t need to expose all the containers with same network. They should be running under their own network (In my opinion).

Create zitadel network with

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docker network create zitadel

Volumes

Let’s create few directories to store the date persistently.

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mkdir certs zitadel-certs data

Certificates & Database

zitadel uses cockroach db for SQL and it also supports postgres.

Compose for db & certs

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services:
  certs:
    image: cockroachdb/cockroach:latest
    container_name: certs
    entrypoint: ["/bin/bash", "-c"]
    command:
      [
        "cp /certs/* /zitadel-certs/ && cockroach cert create-client --overwrite --certs-dir /zitadel-certs/ --ca-key /zitadel-certs/ca.key zitadel_user && chown 1000:1000 /zitadel-certs/*",
      ]
    volumes:
      - ./certs:/certs:ro
      - ./zitadel-certs:/zitadel-certs:rw
    depends_on:
      cockroach-db:
        condition: "service_healthy"
    networks:
      - zitadel

  cockroach-db:
    container_name: cockroach-db
    image: cockroachdb/cockroach:latest
    command: "start-single-node --advertise-addr cockroach-db"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://cockroach-db:8080/health?ready=1"]
      interval: "10s"
      timeout: "30s"
      retries: 5
      start_period: "20s"
    ports:
      - 9090:8080
      - 26257:26257
    volumes:
      - ./certs:/cockroach/certs:rw
      - ./data:/cockroach/cockroach-data:rw
    restart: always
    networks:
      - zitadel

zitadel

Let’s deploy zitadel with docker

docker compose

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services:
  zitadel:
    image: ghcr.io/zitadel/zitadel:latest
    container_name: zitadel
    command: 'start-from-init --config /zitadel-config.yaml --config /zitadel-secrets.yaml --steps /zitadel-init-steps.yaml --masterkey "SAcD5TY0QPp89ip28bZPfEA5WDxqmobx" --tlsMode external'
    depends_on:
      certs:
        condition: "service_completed_successfully"
    environment:
      ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_USERNAME: ${ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_USERNAME}
      ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_PASSWORD: ${ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_PASSWORD}
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    volumes:
      - ./zitadel-config.yaml:/zitadel-config.yaml:ro
      - ./zitadel-secrets.yaml:/zitadel-secrets.yaml:ro
      - ./zitadel-init-steps.yaml:/zitadel-init-steps.yaml:ro
      - ./zitadel-certs:/crdb-certs:ro
    restart: always
    networks:
      - zitadel
      - proxy

As you can seen here, only zitadel container is exposed to proxy network and zitadel network.

DNS

I’m running bind9 as my DNS resolver. Let’s add DNS records for domain

id        IN      CNAME   local.puvvadi.net

Here I’m adding CNAME record for id.puvvadi.net pointing to local.puvvadi.net which is pointed to traefik server instance.

One thing I’ve missed here is no DNS resolver added to compose file and zitadel instance refused to start but throwing non-descriptive errors.

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dns:
  - 10.20.20.132

traefik labels

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- traefik.enable=true
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel.entrypoints=http
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel.rule=Host(`id.domain.net`) || HostRegexp(`{subdomain:[a-z]+}.id.domain.net`)
- traefik.http.middlewares.zitadel-https-redirect.redirectscheme.scheme=https
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel.middlewares=zitadel-https-redirect
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.entrypoints=https
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.rule=Host(`id.domain.net`) || HostRegexp(`{subdomain:[a-z]+}.id.domain.net`)
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.tls=true
- traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.service=zitadel
- traefik.http.services.zitadel.loadbalancer.server.scheme=h2c
- traefik.http.services.zitadel.loadbalancer.passHostHeader=true
- traefik.http.services.zitadel.loadbalancer.server.port=8080
- traefik.docker.network=proxy

Here we are exposing id.domain.net and all the wild card sub domains to traefik. DNS records should be added to your resolver either as wildcard or individual CNAME records.

compose.yaml

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services:
  zitadel:
    image: ghcr.io/zitadel/zitadel:latest
    container_name: zitadel
     # for ZITADEL_MASTERKEY run tr -dc A-Za-z0-9 </dev/urandom | head -c 32
    command: start-from-init --config /zitadel-config.yaml --config /zitadel-secrets.yaml --steps /zitadel-init-steps.yaml --masterkey ${ZITADEL_MASTERKEY} --tlsMode external
    depends_on:
      certs:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
    environment:
      ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_USERNAME: ${ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_USERNAME}
      ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_PASSWORD: ${ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_PASSWORD}
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    volumes:
      - ./zitadel-config.yaml:/zitadel-config.yaml:ro
      - ./zitadel-secrets.yaml:/zitadel-secrets.yaml:ro
      - ./zitadel-init-steps.yaml:/zitadel-init-steps.yaml:ro
      - ./zitadel-certs:/crdb-certs:ro
    labels:
      - traefik.enable=true
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel.entrypoints=http
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel.rule=Host(`id.domain.net`) || HostRegexp(`{subdomain:[a-z]+}.id.domain.net`)
      - traefik.http.middlewares.zitadel-https-redirect.redirectscheme.scheme=https
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel.middlewares=zitadel-https-redirect
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.entrypoints=https
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.rule=Host(`id.domain.net`) || HostRegexp(`{subdomain:[a-z]+}.id.domain.net`)
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.tls=true
      - traefik.http.routers.zitadel-secure.service=zitadel
      - traefik.http.services.zitadel.loadbalancer.server.scheme=h2c
      - traefik.http.services.zitadel.loadbalancer.passHostHeader=true
      - traefik.http.services.zitadel.loadbalancer.server.port=8080
      - traefik.docker.network=proxy
    restart: always
    networks:
      - zitadel
      - proxy
    dns:
      - 10.20.20.132 # replace it with local dns resolver
      - 127.0.0.1

  certs:
    image: cockroachdb/cockroach:latest
    container_name: certs
    entrypoint:
      - /bin/bash
      - -c
    command:
      - cp /certs/* /zitadel-certs/ && cockroach cert create-client --overwrite --certs-dir /zitadel-certs/ --ca-key /zitadel-certs/ca.key zitadel_user && chown 1000:1000 /zitadel-certs/*
    volumes:
      - ./certs:/certs:ro
      - ./zitadel-certs:/zitadel-certs:rw
    depends_on:
      cockroach-db:
        condition: service_healthy
    networks:
      - zitadel

  cockroach-db:
    container_name: cockroach-db
    image: cockroachdb/cockroach:latest
    command: start-single-node --advertise-addr cockroach-db
    healthcheck:
      test:  ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://cockroach-db:8080/health?ready=1"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 30s
      retries: 5
      start_period: 20s
    ports:
      - 9090:8080
      - 26257:26257
    volumes:
      - ./certs:/cockroach/certs:rw
      - ./data:/cockroach/cockroach-data:rw
    restart: always
    networks:
      - zitadel
networks:
  zitadel:
    external: true
  proxy:
    external: true

config

Let’s create few config files from zitadel and only add mandatory items.

Init file

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# All possible options and their defaults: https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/blob/main/cmd/setup/steps.yaml
FirstInstance:
  Org:
    Human:
      # use the loginname [email protected]
      Username: 'root'
      Password: 'RootPassword1!'

Secrets file

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# All possible options and their defaults: https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/blob/main/cmd/defaults.yaml

Database:
  cockroach:
    User:
      # If the user doesn't exist already, it is created
      Username: 'zitadel_user'
    Admin:
      Username: 'root'

and config with certs, custom domain for exposing via traefik etc

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# All possible options and their defaults: https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/blob/main/cmd/defaults.yaml
Log:
  Level: 'info'

ExternalSecure: true
ExternalDomain: id.puvvadi.net # change this to your domain
ExternalPort: 443

Database:
  cockroach:
    Host: 'cockroach-db'
    User:
      SSL:
        Mode: 'verify-full'
        RootCert: "/crdb-certs/ca.crt"
        Cert: "/crdb-certs/client.zitadel_user.crt"
        Key: "/crdb-certs/client.zitadel_user.key"
    Admin:
      SSL:
        Mode: 'verify-full'
        RootCert: "/crdb-certs/ca.crt"
        Cert: "/crdb-certs/client.root.crt"
        Key: "/crdb-certs/client.root.key"

Secrets

To prevent exposing secrets from exposing when committed into version control system such as git, it is safe to use a vault or simply using .env file to store the files and adding it to .gitignore.

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ZITADEL_MASTERKEY=
ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_USERNAME=
ZITADEL_FIRSTINSTANCE_ORG_HUMAN_PASSWORD=

Master can be generated with

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tr -dc A-Za-z0-9 </dev/urandom | head -c 32

Make sure also add username and password for initial user.

Deploy

To deploy, simply run

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docker compose up -d

Now instance is available at id.puvvadi.net or domain of your choice. Login with the username and password set in .env file.

zitadel login page zitadel login page with Google and GitHub oAuth

Conclusion

Zitadel can now be used as identity provider for your homelab needs. Make sure to add other ways of login in case of service down as it is only running as single instance not in High Availability mode. We’ll explore HA is future. If don’t want to Self-Host, Hosted version with free tier is available and it’s more than enough for the most Homelabers. Au revoir.

zitadel, docker, vpn, identity, OIDC, oAuth
zitadel openid docker vpn identity
This post is licensed under MIT by the author.