# How-to Start an OpenZiti Simple Instance with Docker Compose **URL:** \ **Category:** Uncategorized\ **Created:** [August 11, 2023, 4:57pm UTC](https://openziti.discourse.group/t/how-to-start-an-openziti-simple-instance-with-docker-compose/1483 "2023-08-11T16:57:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jptechnical](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/openziti.discourse.group/jptechnical/32/1089_2.png) [@jptechnical](https://openziti.discourse.group/u/jptechnical)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:57pm UTC](https://openziti.discourse.group/t/how-to-start-an-openziti-simple-instance-with-docker-compose/1483/1 "2023-08-11T16:57:36Z")
I compiled my resources and repeated my setup, and wrote a doc for a quick and repeatable docker compose setup. The parts that were confusing to me are in the example doc for the .env file. I wrote this for my testing and team and wanted to share it. This serves as the basis for all the future testing we will do, that is until we outgrow it as a testing environment. * * * # How-to Start an OpenZiti Simple Instance with Docker Compose The following how-to will create an OpenZiti instance running on Docker Compose using the simplified quickstart method. This will allow simple re-creation of the environment for fast-feedback in your testing. > Assumptions: > You will need to make several substitutions for your environment. These substitutions are as follows. > > - Our ziti controller hostname and port is `ziti.zititest.biz:1280`. > - Our ziti controller web address and port is `https://ziti.zititest.biz:8443`. (note it is a self-signed cert) > - We have a dns record for `ziti.zititest.biz` pointing to our public IP address of `123.123.123.123`. > - The ziti default admin password is `ThisIsNotYourPassword!`. > - Debian 12 will be used as our example operating system. > - All commands will be executed from the `~/ziti` directory once it exists. > - For the purposes of this demo, we will be using the Docker Convenience Script, which is suitable for testing only. ## Prepare Your Host VM In our case, we are using a virtual machine on Linode, although any small vps will be sufficient. We will ssh into our vm and prep the operating system for use. 1. Update your host with 2. Install Docker with 3. Verify Docker is installed with `sudo docker ps`. You should see the following as output. ## Prepare Your Ziti Components We will now create a directory to run our Ziti instance in. Then we will get the simplified compose file, `.env` file, and make the necessary changes for our environment. 1. Create a directory to work from with 2. Change to this directory with 3. Get the simplified compose file with 4. Get the environment file with 5. Make the following changes to your `.env` file for your actual environment: ## Start Your Ziti Instance We should now be able to run our Ziti instance with Docker Compose. The next step will be helpful to run in a separate terminal, so that we can watch the the logs of the containers. 1. Start your compose instance with 2. We can monitor the status of our compose environment with a tool called [jesseduffield/lazydocker](https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazydocker), which is a minimalist terminal based viewer for container workloads. The executable can be downloaded and executed with the following commands. You should see the containers settle into a running state and the logs mostly go quiet. The `ziti-controller-init-1` container will exit having finished it's work, and the ziti instance should be up and running. ## Test Your Ziti Instance Let's test the instance now by attempting to log into it. We can do this from the terminal on our host vm. Then let's see if we can list identities and other objects. 1. First, we need to get the Ziti Executable and extract it to our folder. We can find the executable from the [Releases · openziti/ziti](https://github.com/openziti/ziti/releases/latest) page. Get the URL of the current release. We can then download and extract with the following commands. 2. Test the `ziti` executable with `./ziti -v` and confirm that the version you downloaded is output. 3. Sign in to the ziti instance and accept the certificate authority prompt. 4. Now list the identities with If you see output like the above, then you are successful in creating your Docker Compose instance of OpenZiti You can also test the ZAC (Ziti web console) with the curl command below. This will just respond with the HTTP Status Code confirming it is online. You can browse to this page if you have allowed firewall access to your server, the default port is `8443`. ```bash curl -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' -s -I https://localhost:8443/login -k ``` The output looks like the following, it returns a 200. The 200 OK status code means that **the request was successful**. ```bash $ curl -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' -s -I https://localhost:8443/login -k 200 ``` ## Deleting Your Ziti Instance When you are ready to delete your Ziti instance, the process is very simple. The command below will stop the instance, clear out the container volumes that hold the data like the certificates and database, and then delete the images used by the container. This will allow you to start fresh again, with a new instance for further testing. ```bash sudo docker compose down -v -rmi all ``` Here is what the output looks like when destroying the instance. ```bash $ sudo docker compose down -v --rmi all [+] Running 8/8 ✔ Container ziti-ziti-controller-init-container-1 Removed 0.0s ✔ Container ziti-ziti-console-1 Removed 10.3s ✔ Container ziti-ziti-edge-router-1 Removed 10.4s ✔ Container ziti-ziti-controller-1 Removed 10.3s ✔ Volume ziti_ziti-fs Remo... 0.0s ✔ Image openziti/quickstart:latest Removed 0.1s ✔ Image openziti/zac:latest Removed 0.7s ✔ Network ziti_ziti Remove... 0.3s ``` ## Conclusion If you have been able to follow along with this how-to, **congratulations** , you should have an instance of OpenZiti suitable for testing using Docker Compose. This instance is easy to tear down and build up again. Each time you rebuild the instance, you will have a clean instance with nothing but the quickstart resources.