easypanel-nextjs-sqlite

Trying to get Next.js + SQLite combo working on Easypanel with Docker

In real app, do not commit .env.development & .env.production to source control like Git. Add it to .gitignore & .dockerignore or better yet use dotenvx for environment variables.

Create .env.development & .env.production using .env.example format.

NOTE: SQLITE_DATABASE_NAME should be equal to users.${MODE}.sqlite where MODE is an environment variable in .env.* as it is referenced in run.sh. For example, don't use SQLITE_DATABASE_NAME=users.dev.sqlite in .env.development if you are using MODE=development in the same file. You have to either use MODE=dev or SQLITE_DATABASE_NAME=users.development.sqlite. I like using long-form.

NPM Scripts appended with :prod are production scripts and those without anything appended are scripts to be used in development.

Use /data in .env.production like SQLITE_DATABASE_PATH=/data/users.production.sqlite & setup Cloudflare environment variables to have Database Backups using Litestream.

TODOS

Get development/Dockerfile to support HMR (Currently, Dockerfile in development does not work but pnpm dev is much better anyways)
Switch back to using docker-compose.yml for development & staging as docker compose doesn't work only in production on a VPS like Easypanel. Most of the changes were in Dockerfile & Easypanel Settings so all the complexity isn't needed at all.

Note: If you need Redis, then only setup Redis in Docker & use local development environment for HMR as setting docker in development is very tedious & useless (at least it was in my case.)

Development Side

pnpm db:generate generates migration files for development at /src/app/db/migrations
pnpm db:migrate generates users.dev.sqlite for development
pnpm turbo or pnpm dev runs the local server.
if you try to interact with database by clicking add, delete, or get buttons, then it creates *.sqlite-shm or *.sqlite-wal files. read more about wal mode at https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/enabling-wal-mode.

Production Side

make build-production to build a Docker Container for production
make start-production to start the Docker Container
make stop-production to stop the Docker Container
docker system prune -f && docker builder prune -f to delete all images & container

Hosting on Easypanel

Go to Environment & paste .env.production into Environment Variables & check Create .env file to create .env file.
Change port to 3001 as specified in Dockerfile. Go into Domains, click on Edit button, change Internal Port to 3001. Make sure to use Custom Domain as Easypanel currently isn't working on *.easypanel.host domains.
Go to Source, add Github credentials, choose Dockerfile & paste docker/production/Dockerfile as the location.
Enable Auto Deploy by checking the box besides Destroy (delete icon) button.
Finally, click on Deploy to launch it.

SQLite WAL Mode Caveats

I noticed SQLite WAL Mode on Docker Container doesn't work too well & results in data loss when the *.sqlite file is opened in a database browser like SQLite Database Desktop App.

Reproduction steps (you have to remove litestream specific code as WAL mode works with Litestream... see below) to see this issue after enabling WAL mode in 2 places (search journal_mode=WAL in VSCode):

Click Add in localhost:3000
Click Get All
Open the Desktop App SQLite Database by installing it from https://sqlitebrowser.org/
Click Add again multiple times & try to refresh database inside SQLite Database Desktop App
Notice, how the data doesn't update in the Desktop app but works fine in localhost:3000
Now close the Docker Container resulting in a data loss

For this reason, I'll be avoiding WAL mode for now. When the time comes & I need multiple writes, I'll use PostgreSQL instead of SQLite if I need multiple writers on a database but since the process of multiple writes is instantanious (milliseconds) so I'll be going with SQLite for now anyways.

SQLite WAL Mode now works when used in combination with Litestream

I repeated the above 6 steps exactly as specified & there was no data loss.

I guess Litestream wrote it to its WAL Mode & when it found a wrong pointer, Litestream restored the database.

This was the log from Litestream that got me to this conclusion:

time=2024-02-28T05:44:50.247Z level=WARN msg="init: cannot determine last wal position, clearing generation" db=/data/users.prod.sqlite error="primary wal header: EOF"
time=2024-02-28T05:44:50.406Z level=INFO msg="sync: new generation" db=/data/users.prod.sqlite generation=ab8dd20a19bb28f7 reason="no generation exists"
time=2024-02-28T05:44:51.298Z level=INFO msg="write snapshot" db=/data/users.prod.sqlite replica=s3 position=ab8dd20a19bb28f7/00000000:4152
time=2024-02-28T05:44:51.720Z level=INFO msg="snapshot written" db=/data/users.prod.sqlite replica=s3 position=ab8dd20a19bb28f7/00000000:4152 elapsed=422.755427ms sz=1512
time=2024-02-28T05:44:52.234Z level=INFO msg="write wal segment" db=/data/users.prod.sqlite replica=s3 position=ab8dd20a19bb28f7/00000000:0
time=2024-02-28T05:44:52.602Z level=INFO msg="wal segment written" db=/data/users.prod.sqlite replica=s3 position=ab8dd20a19bb28f7/00000000:0 elapsed=367.834931ms sz=4152

Easypanel Volume Mount

Go to Storage > Click Add Volume Mount > Put Name as anything and Mount Path as /etc/easypanel/projects/[project]/[services]/volumes/data/
Use /data as directory

Hypothesis:

Use /etc/easypanel/projects/[project]/[services]/volumes/data/ as Data Path
Use /data as directory

Easypanel Port fix

I used Domains > Port & added 3001 as internal port on my custom domain & it worked. It didn't work on *.easypanel.host domain for some reason.

I had Mounts > Add Volume Mount set to data as Name & /data as Mount Path which I don't think is needed if I use VOLUMES ["/data"] in Dockerfile.

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