Exercise: Install Homer Dashboard Docker Container

Description: In this exercise, you will install and configure the Homer Dashboard within a Docker container. Homer is a lightweight, customizable dashboard that allows you to organize and manage links to your services, applications, and tools in a visual format. Using Docker will streamline the installation process and provide you with an isolated environment for running the dashboard.

Difficulty Level

Beginner

Estimated Duration

0:30:00

Prerequisites

No prerequisites have been identified for this exercise.

Resources

Computer: A desktop or laptop computer used by developers for writing, compiling, testing, and debugging code. It runs IDEs and supports various programming languages.
Monitor: Visual output devices for displaying information, data, or images, including LED, LCD, and OLED screens.

Install Homer Dashboard Docker Container

Introduction

In this exercise, you will install and configure the Homer Dashboard within a Docker container. Homer is a lightweight, customizable dashboard that allows you to organize and manage links to your services, applications, and tools in a visual format. By using Docker, you'll streamline the installation process and run Homer in an isolated environment, making it easy to deploy and manage.

Objectives

By the end of this exercise, you will be able to: - Install Docker and configure the Homer Dashboard within a container. - Set up a basic Homer Dashboard with the ability to add and manage links. - Understand how to interact with Docker containers for app deployment.

Materials

Computer with internet access
Docker installed on your machine
A terminal or command-line interface (CLI)

Preparation Steps

Install Docker:
- Ensure that Docker is installed on your system. If not, download and install Docker from here.
- Verify the installation by running the following command in your terminal:
```
docker --version
```
Set up a directory for Homer Dashboard:
- Create a directory on your computer where the Homer Dashboard configuration files will reside. For example:
```
mkdir ~/homer-dashboard
cd ~/homer-dashboard
```
Prepare your environment:
- Ensure that Docker is running and accessible from the terminal.
- Familiarize yourself with Docker commands such as docker pull, docker run, and docker ps.

Execution Steps

Pull the Homer Docker image:
- Use Docker's pull command to download the Homer image from the Docker registry:
```
docker pull b4bz/homer
```
Run the Homer Docker container:
- After the image has been pulled, start a container from the image:
```
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name homer b4bz/homer
```
- This command runs the Homer Dashboard in detached mode and maps port 8080 of your container to port 8080 on your host machine.
Access the Homer Dashboard:
- Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 to view the Homer Dashboard.
Customize the Homer Dashboard:
- The default configuration for Homer should appear. You can edit the config.yml file inside the running container to modify the links and layout of the dashboard.
- To edit the configuration, you may use the following command to access the container's file system:
```
docker exec -it homer sh
```
- Modify the config.yml file according to your needs.
Restart the Docker container:
- After making changes, restart the container to apply the configuration:
```
docker restart homer
```
Verify changes:
- Return to your browser and reload the Homer Dashboard to confirm that your changes have been applied successfully.