Self Hosted Apps

Self-Hosted Application Deployment

When to Use

• User asks to set up a file server, cloud storage, monitoring, dashboard, or note-taking app
• Deploying web applications on the server
• Need API access to manage files or services programmatically

Pre-Deployment Checklist

1. Docker mirrors MUST be configured first — see docker-alibaba-cloud skill
2. Check available resources: free -h && df -h /
3. Check existing containers: sudo docker ps
4. Plan port allocation — avoid conflicts

Deployment Pattern

# 1. Pull image (use background=true for large images)
sudo docker pull image:tag

# 2. Run container
sudo docker run -d --restart=always \
  --name appname \
  -p PORT:PORT \
  -v /path/to/data:/data \
  image:tag

# 3. Open firewall
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=PORT/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

# 4. Get initial credentials
sudo docker logs appname 2>&1 | grep -i "password\|密码"

# 5. Remind user to open Alibaba Cloud security group port

AList — File Server / Cloud Storage

Lightweight self-hosted file manager with API access. Perfect for file sharing between user and agent.

Deploy

sudo docker run -d --restart=always --name alist \
  -p 5244:5244 \
  -v /opt/alist/data:/opt/alist/data \
  -v /:/host:ro \
  -e PUID=0 -e PGID=0 -e UMASK=022 \
  xhofe/alist:latest

Initial Setup

# Get initial password
sudo docker logs alist 2>&1 | grep -i "password"

# Login and get token
TOKEN=$(curl -s http://localhost:5244/api/auth/login -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"username":"admin","password":"INITIAL_PASSWORD"}' | \
  python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['data']['token'])")

Change Username/Password via API

# IMPORTANT: role must be array [2] for admin, not integer 2
curl -s http://localhost:5244/api/admin/user/update -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $TOKEN" \
  -d '{"id":2,"username":"newuser","password":"newpass","role":[2],"disabled":false,"permission":65535,"base_path":"/","sso_id":""}'

Pitfall: AList API role field MUST be array [2], not integer 2. Error: "decode slice: expect [ or n, but found 2"

Pitfall: User ID may be 2, not 1. Always check /api/me first to get the actual user ID.

Pitfall: /api/me/update-password returns HTML page (not JSON) in some AList versions. Use /api/admin/user/update instead.

Configure Storage

# Update storage to point to host root
curl -s http://localhost:5244/api/admin/storage/update -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $TOKEN" \
  -d '{
    "id": 1,
    "mount_path": "/",
    "order": 0,
    "driver": "Local",
    "cache_expiration": 30,
    "status": "work",
    "addition": "{\"root_folder_path\":\"/host\",\"thumbnail\":false,\"use_ffmpeg\":false,\"thumb_cache_folder\":\"\",\"thumb_concurrency\":\"\",\"thumb_pixel\":\"\",\"video_thumb_pos\":\"20%\",\"show_hidden\":true,\"mkdir_perm\":\"777\",\"recycle_bin_path\":\"delete permanently\"}"
  }'

Pitfall: If mounting host root /, use -v /:/host:ro in Docker and set root_folder_path to /host. Container's own / is the container filesystem, not the host.

Pitfall: To add a storage, use update on existing ID, not create — UNIQUE constraint on mount_path prevents duplicates.

File Operations API

# List files
curl -s "http://localhost:5244/api/fs/list" -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $TOKEN" \
  -d '{"path":"/some/path","password":"","page":1,"per_page":50}'

# Upload file
curl -T localfile.txt "http://localhost:5244/dav/remote/path/file.txt" \
  -H "Authorization: $TOKEN"

# Create folder
curl -s http://localhost:5244/api/fs/mkdir -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $TOKEN" \
  -d '{"path":"/some/new/folder"}'

Uptime Kuma — Monitoring

sudo docker run -d --restart=always --name uptime-kuma \
  -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data louislam/uptime-kuma:1

Memos — Note-Taking

sudo docker run -d --restart=always --name memos \
  -p 5230:5230 -v memos:/var/opt/memos neosmemo/memos:stable

Pitfalls

1. Always configure Docker mirrors first — without mirrors, pulls timeout in China
2. Use background=true for docker pull — don't block the conversation
3. AList role is array not int — [2] not 2
4. AList user ID may not be 1 — check /api/me first
5. Host root mount needs /host mapping — -v /:/host:ro + root_folder_path: /host
6. Alibaba Cloud security group — remind user to open ports after deployment
7. Don't over-deploy on small servers — 2 cores 1.8GB RAM can handle 3-4 lightweight apps max
8. AList Docker auto-restarts — xhofe/alist:latest container has a restart policy. If you replace AList with a custom app (e.g. Flask disk on port 5244), kill won't work — the Docker daemon restarts it. Must use sudo docker stop alist (or sudo docker rm -f alist) to permanently free the port. Check with sudo docker ps | grep alist before starting a replacement service.