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Portainer Templates

Anchor Anchor

Stack

Productivity

An offline first, self hostable note taking application

Configuration

Type
Compose
Platform
linux
Image
anchor
Ports
3000:3000
Volumes
/data : anchor_data
Env vars
PG_USER=anchorPG_PASSWORD=passwordPG_DATABASE=anchor
Restart
unless-stopped
Build
[object Object]
Source
Repo

Template by xneo1·Source

Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying Anchor

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select Anchor, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo
Original stackfile

The compose file this template deploys, straight from its repo:

services:
  anchor:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    image: anchor
    container_name: anchor
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - PG_USER=anchor
      - PG_PASSWORD=password
      - PG_DATABASE=anchor
    volumes:
      - anchor_data:/data

volumes:
  anchor_data:

Or deploy it directly from the source:

git clone https://github.com/xneo1/portainer_templates
cd portainer_templates
docker compose -f Template/Stack/anchor.yml up -d

More install options in our documentation.

Serve Anchor on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying anchor.example.com to http://anchor:3000

Add this to your Caddyfile

anchor.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://anchor:3000
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs <container>
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:3000 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :3000
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 3000:3000 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:3000. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, anchor can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 3000

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull anchor

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses latest, so try pinning a specific version instead.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect <container> --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Stack won't deploy

Compose stacks fail fast on small mistakes, and Portainer shows the reason just above the editor.

  • YAML only accepts spaces for indentation, a single tab breaks the whole file.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A Compose stack

Anchor is a Compose stack, a set of containers defined in one file and brought up together by Portainer, then started and stopped as a single app.

The app image

An image is the app packed up ready to go, everything Anchor needs bundled into one download. This template pulls anchor, which Docker fetches once and then starts your own copy from.

Where the image comes from

Docker pulls its images from registries, public libraries of ready-built apps. Anchor's comes from Docker Hub as one of its official, curated images.

Version tags

The bit after the colon in the image name is the version tag. Here it's latest, which always points at the newest build, so a redeploy can bump you to a newer release without you asking. Pin a specific tag if you would rather stay on one version.

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 3000:3000 means it's reachable on port 3000 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. Once it's running, open http://your-server-ip:3000 in a browser. It opens:

  • 3000:3000, likely the web interface

Volumes

A volume is where Anchor keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /data kept in the anchor_data volume Docker manages

Environment variables

Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. Anchor takes 3 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:

  • PG_USER, defaults to anchor
  • PG_PASSWORD, defaults to password
  • PG_DATABASE, defaults to anchor

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts Anchor after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Networking

Nothing custom is set, so Anchor sits on Docker's default bridge network: its own private space that reaches the outside world only through the ports it publishes.

Container name

Once it's deployed, Portainer names the container anchor. That's what you'll spot in the containers list and use in commands like docker logs anchor.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set Anchor up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying Anchor is a click rather than a wall of config.