Portainer Templates

There are two types of Portainer templates:

• type stack: the new type that uses Docker stack under the hood and is better to use on Portainer
• type container: the old type that can only start one container, discouraged to use except if the stack type is too limited (e.g. old DB2 and old MSSQL server containers need more priviliges that only the container type can provide)

How to create a new stack type template

A stack type template consists of two things:

1. a YAML file in the Docker stack format that contains definitions like which container(s) to start on which ports, by our convention always named docker-stack.yml (to avoid confusion with Docker Compose)
2. an entry in the new-stack-templates.json that includes some metadata about the template and makes the Docker stack YAML file available in Portainer UI

To create a new one:

1. In the stacks directory create a new subdirectory with the name of your stack (please follow existing naming scheme) and create a new docker-stack.yml inside that subdirectory or duplicate an existing subdirectory and modify the included docker-stack.yml with different Docker image or ports etc.
2. Edit the file new-stack-templates.json to create or duplicate an entry and supply metadata as required, minimum is changed title and description fields (for Portainer UI) and the correct path in stackfile field!
3. Run python3 generate-stack-templates.py to regenerate the stack-templates.json which is the definitive file consumed by Portainer
4. Create a new branch (e.g. use JIRA issue number), check in all modified/new files e.g. via git add .
5. Push the new commit and open a Pull Request
6. When the PR is merged it may take some minutes for the change to be available in Portainer UI (due to Github caching)

How to modify an existing stack type template

1. Modify a docker-stack.yml or the file new-stack-templates.json as needed
2. Run python3 generate-stack-templates.py to regenerate the stack-templates.json which is the definitive file consumed by Portainer
3. Create a new branch (e.g. use JIRA issue number), check in all modified/new files e.g. via git add .
4. Push the new commit and open a Pull Request
5. When the PR is merged it may take some minutes for the change to be available in Portainer UI (due to Github caching)

How to create a new container type template

A container type template consists only of an entry in the templates.json that includes some metadata about the template and the docker image to run.

To create a new one:

1. Edit the file templates.json to create an entry for the new template. You can check the file for how the changes should look like.
2. Run python3 generate-stack-templates.py to regenerate the stack-templates.json which is the definitive file consumed by Portainer
3. Create a new branch (e.g. use JIRA issue number), check in all modified/new files e.g. via git add .
4. Push the new commit and open a Pull Request
5. When the PR is merged it may take some minutes for the change to be available in Portainer UI (due to Github caching)