Server Installation on Linux Domentation

1

For years I have been self hosting Manager on a Windows Server using NSSM, IIS, Application Request Routing and URL Rewrite module and I always used my own domain Certificates.

I am moving all my services away from Windows to Linux. I have installed Manager no problem on Debian and am able to connect to it (without installing nginx, apache or anything) from my browser, but only using http, not https. So it works without https encryption, so that is good starting point.

I found an old document explaining how to get Manager to use SSL Certificates here - https://www2.manager.io/server/installation/ubuntu/

I just wanted to confirm that the procedure outlined in this document is still valid for today as Manager has changed a lot over the years and I don’t know how old that document is.

Essentially the guide is saying:

  1. Download and untar the Manager install file into whatever folder you want to run Manager from
  2. Install Manager as a systemd service (which I will do later)
  3. Install Caddy in similar fashion to Manager and then configure Caddy which domain you want to reverse proxy for Manager, so that you effectively connect to Caddy with SSL Certificate and then Caddy passes onto backend Manager using whatever port you have Manager running on
  4. I need to find the Caddy Documentation on how to configure it to use my own Certificate as I don’t want a Letsencrypt function for this system.

So, I don’t need apache or nginx or NSSM or anything like IIS for manager to work right?

I used to - on the old system connect to Manager using a port number different to port 8080. I don’t think I need to change the port number anymore because I am not using the other program that was using port 8080. But fundamentally, I never needed to redirect from one port to another. The only and sole reason for using IIS in the past was for SSL Certificates so that communication was encrypted.

Anyone familiar with Debian especially, would be appreciated. I am not familiar with Caddy at all as never used it.

2

One important point: Manager does not officially list Debian as a supported Linux distribution. The stated Linux requirement is Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit / Fedora 38 64-bit or newer.

So Debian should be treated as “works in practice if the required dependencies are present,” not “officially supported by Manager.”

That said, if Manager Server is already running on Debian and you can reach it over HTTP, then the Manager part is working. The remaining issue is only HTTPS.

Manager itself does not need Apache, Nginx, IIS, NSSM, or Caddy. Caddy would only replace what IIS/ARR/URL Rewrite was previously doing: accepting HTTPS traffic and reverse-proxying it locally to Manager on port 8080.

I would not follow the old Ubuntu guide literally. The general architecture is still valid:

Browser → HTTPS to Caddy on port 443 → local HTTP to Manager on 127.0.0.1:8080

But the old Caddy installation method is outdated. On Debian, use the official Caddy Debian package instead of manually downloading the old Caddy binary and creating your own caddy.service.

For a private/custom certificate, the Caddyfile would be roughly:

manager.example.com {
    tls /etc/caddy/certs/fullchain.pem /etc/caddy/certs/privatekey.pem
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8080
}

Also, Manager Server is usually not updated through apt as a manager-server package. It is normally updated by downloading the latest Manager Server Linux .tar.gz, extracting it over the existing Manager Server program folder, and restarting the manager-server systemd service. For a practical Debian setup, keep Manager on port 8080 and put Caddy in front for HTTPS.

3

Thank you very much for your information. It was very helpful.

Yes, I agree that if Manager is actually running, then obviously it works properly on Debian. Ubuntu is based on Debian, it just has more features and functionality, and more current releases. But generally the underlying distro and dependencies are broadly the same. So generally, most software should work on Debian if it works on Ubuntu.

I didn’t think that Manager required Apache, Nginx or IIS or even Caddy to actually run. I just wanted to confirm that I had understood this correctly, because in the past, I had never realised that Manager could run as a server without IIS. Having said that, when I setup Manager on a Windows Server years ago, I was new to IIS and Reverse Proxying, so didn’t fully understand what was happening there especially as IIS hides everything behind a gui.

So, yes I clearly do need Caddy to accept SSL traffic and reverse proxy it back to Manager on Port 8080

Ya, I was not planning on using the Caddy install instructions in that guide. I would expect apt install to work, which gets me the latest and makes it easy to update.

I will try the caddy file example you have provided and see how it. Failing that, I will see what the Caddy website suggests. I agree and will keep Manager running on port 8080 as it doesn’t really make sense to change that end to a different port number.

I will update when I have installed it and got it working today. Thanks

4

Thank you. All working now. Was surprisingly easy to get Caddy to work with Manager. I just have to do the systemctl start services for both Manager and Caddy, but will do that another time. I just wanted to get the service transferred and tested as working. Thanks