Using multiple traefik middlewares using docker labels

Sunday, April 11, 2021

selfhostinghomelabdockertraefik

Quick post today just to highlight how to use multiple middlawares in a traefik configuration. I realized that I haven’t posted about it and all example I gave always used 1 middleware to redirect http to https. Today, let’s use more :).

For this example, I’m going to install homer (the very simplistic personal dashboard page). I used to have Heimdall installed on my cluster before the crash, but I never really used it. That’s because I thought it was too heavy for my need to be honest.

I decided to switch to homer because it is very lightweight and simple1 but this is not the goal of this post.

If I take the previous configuration shown, the “default” docker-compose would be:

Quick post today just to highlight how to use multiple middlawares in a traefik configuration. I realized that I haven’t posted about it and all example I gave always used 1 middleware to redirect http to https. Today, let’s use more :).

For this example, I’m going to install homer (the very simplistic personal dashboard page). I used to have Heimdall installed on my cluster before the crash, but I never really used it. That’s because I thought it was too heavy for my need to be honest.

I decided to switch to homer because it is very lightweight and simple1 but this is not the goal of this post.

If I take the previous configuration shown, the “default” docker-compose would be:

    version: "3"

    services:
      homer:
        image: b4bz/homer
        networks:
          - traefik-net
        environment:
          - PUID=1000
          - PGID=1000
        volumes:
          - /path/to/containers-data/homer/data:/www/assets
        deploy:
          labels:
            - traefik.enable=true
            - traefik.http.services.dashboard-service.loadbalancer.server.port=8080
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule=Host(`homer.domain.tld`)
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard.entrypoints=http
            # For https:
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.rule=Host(`homer.domain.tld`)
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.entrypoints=https
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.tls=true
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.tls.certresolver=le
            - traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-redirect-dashboard-secure.redirectscheme.scheme=https
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard.middlewares=dashboard-redirect-dashboard-secure
          placement:
            constraints:
              - node.role == worker

    networks:
      traefik-net:
        external: true

But this only use one middle. To use multiple ones, we need to use a middleware chain instead of just a declared middleware.

In this example, I’m just going to add a basic http authentication. But this works the same if you added more like rate limiting and such.

Before editing the docker-compose file, we need to generate a user/password for the basic auth. Obviously, it is better to use a file to manage the credential (if you have more than one user at least), but for the sake of example, it is simpler that way.

To create the user/password information, use this command line (from the traefik documentation). You need apache2-utils for the htpasswd command on debian like distribution.

    echo $(htpasswd -nb user password) | sed -e s/\\$/\\$\\$/g

The sed part is to double the $ sign as traefik needs it.

Then, edit the deploy part of the docker-compose file like this:

        deploy:
          labels:
            - traefik.enable=true
            - traefik.http.services.dashboard-service.loadbalancer.server.port=8080
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule=Host(`homer.domain.tld`)
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard.entrypoints=http
            # For https:
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.rule=Host(`homer.domain.tld`)
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.entrypoints=https
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.tls=true
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.tls.certresolver=le
            - traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-redirect-dashboard-secure.redirectscheme.scheme=https
            # We don't declare just a middleware here.
            #- traefik.http.routers.dashboard.middlewares=dashboard-redirect-dashboard-secure
            # HTTP auth:
            # This is were you need to paste the result of the command above:
            - "traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-auth.basicauth.users=<user>:<GeneratedPasswordAbove>"
            # Declaring the middleware chain:
            - traefik.http.routers.dashboard-secure.middlewares=secured
            # Add all middlewares in the chain:
            - traefik.http.middlewares.secured.chain.middlewares=dashboard-redirect-dashboard-secure,dashboard-auth

If you need to add more, just add to the chain middlewares last line all the middlewares needed.

And voilà! As said, very short example of using a chain middlewares :).


  1. And if I’m not mistaken, the main developer is someone I used to work with and appreciate^^. ↩︎ ↩︎


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