Quick Start

This guide walks you through deploying your first container stack after installing dockmesh.

1. Log in

Open http://your-server:8080. What happens next depends on how you installed dockmesh:

• One-line installer (curl … | sudo bash) — the installer sets DOCKMESH_SETUP_FORCE=true, so on first visit the Setup Wizard takes over and walks you through creating the admin user + base URL inside the browser.

• dockmesh init --yes or dockmesh init without the installer — an admin user is auto-bootstrapped on first start. The generated password is logged once at startup. Find it with:

  journalctl -u dockmesh | grep -i bootstrap

After admin creation you land on the dashboard with a “no stacks yet” empty state.

2. Create a stack

1. Click Stacks in the sidebar
2. Click New stack
3. Enter a name (e.g., hello-world)
4. Paste this compose.yaml:

services:
  web:
    image: nginx:alpine
    ports:
      - "8081:80"

5. Click Create

3. Deploy

On the stack detail page, click Deploy. dockmesh pulls the image and starts the container.

Visit http://your-server:8081 to see the Nginx welcome page.

4. Monitor

• Dashboard shows CPU, memory, disk across all hosts
• Containers lists all running containers with real-time stats
• Click a container to see logs, terminal, and metrics

5. Import a docker run command

Already have a running container started with docker run? dockmesh can convert it:

1. Open Stacks → New stack
2. Click Import from docker run
3. Paste your command (e.g., docker run -d --name web -p 8080:80 -v data:/app/data nginx:alpine)
4. dockmesh generates the equivalent compose.yaml

Next steps

• Add a remote host to manage containers across multiple servers
• Set up backups to protect your data
• Configure SSO for team access