Setting up a Staging Server

[jangeador]

What is the proper way to setup a staging server using the production settings with docker? I am having to create a third file staging.yml which is identical to production.yml in everything except for the traefik container which builds from a different docker file in order to have a separate traefik.yml file with a different staging domain, also I am pointing this traefik.yml file to go to caServer: https://acme-staging-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory in order to have a semi-valid cert, not a real valid one.

Please let me know if there is a better way to do this.

[taut-and-yare]

@jangeador Hello, could you share the files in question (staging.yml and Dockerfile) for reference?

[martibosch]

Hello!

in case it may interest anyone, I have designed an approach to set up a staging server in the staging branch of my fork. It basically consists of four changes:

• adding a separate initial cookiecutter variable (i.e., staging_domain_name) for the staging domain name
• added staging environment variables for django (i.e., at .envs/.staging/.django) where DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS is set to staging_domain_name. Optionally, you can change the AWS/GCP storage settings there too (e.g., if you use a dedicated S3 instance for the staging environment).
• added a TRAEFIK_HOST environment variable which takes the value of the production domain_name (in .envs/.production/.traefik) or the staging staging_domain_name (in a new file .envs/.staging/.traefik).
• finally, we add a staging.yml file for docker-compose which is based on the production environment but replaces the host/storage server addresses based on the environment variables described above. Then, you can use such a file as a configuration override, e.g., build the stack as in docker-compose -f production.yml -f staging.yml build.

It's just a first idea which may have drawbacks, but it's working so far and it avoids hard-copying (i.e., duplicating) the production settings for the staging server. Looking forward to recieve feedback. Best,
Martí