1.6.1 Docker VM Preperation

1.6.1.1 Docker VM Installation
The first VM we will create is the Docker VM. This VM will serve for all our docker compose files and applications that are not mission critical and are light weight applications. What is and what is not mission critical is of course for up to debate ;) Personally I have three dedicated VM's 
 
 One for Ente Photos 
 One for my Servarr Stack 
 My Docker VM for all my lightweight applications 
 
 In this section we will setup a Docker VM in proxmox i.e most likely your first VM. Luckily this will be extremely ease due to Proxmox Helper scripts . Proxmox Helper scripts walks you extremely easy through the whole installation process of any LXC container and also certain VM's. In this case we will make use of it as well to create our Docker VM. Super easy, no configuration necessary from your end. Just hit the following link in your PVE Shell and you can start  
 bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVE/main/vm/docker-vm.sh)" 
 1. Choose Install Docker Vm 
 2. Choose Advanced Setup  
 3. Select the newest form of Debian as of writing that is Debian 13 
 4. Enable Cloud Init:  Yes 
 5. Provision SSH keys for Cloud-Init VM: -> Choose "manual Paste a single public key  " 
 6. Copy paste in your SSH key from the machine you are planning to access the Docker VM from. 
 7. Set a Docker VM ID: Choose what fits for you. Most often I start with 1001 
 8. Choose type: q35 
 9. Choose the amount of Storage: I would recommend to start with 16G and then you can always add more over time. It is easy to add but hard to remove storage from your VM. Hence, start low and add more if necessary. 
 10.Disk Cache: None 
 11. Choose hostname: hostname 
 12. Choose CPU model: host 
 13. Allocate CPU cores: Start with 4 and you can always add more if necessary 
 14. RAM: start with 4096  
 15. Interface: Choose the interface on which the VLAN sits that you want to use for your docker VM. 
 16. Set a MAC address: Leave as is 
 17. Set VLAN: The VLAN you want to host the docker VM on. 
 18. Finally choose the storage pool: Recommended on your VM mirrored SSD ZFS pool if you have that configured

1.6.1.2 Dockge Introduction
As we will see we can either be in the terminal all the time editing docker compose files for our applications or we can attach a GUI to it.  
 
 Website 
 Github Page 
 
 
 So yeahh that is basically what Dockge is including many other features such as 
 
 🧑‍💼 Manage your compose.yaml files
 
 Create/Edit/Start/Stop/Restart/Delete 
 Update Docker Images 
 
 
 ⌨️ Interactive Editor for compose.yaml 
 🦦 Interactive Web Terminal 
 🕷️ (1.4.0 🆕) Multiple agents support - You can manage multiple stacks from different Docker hosts in one single interface 
 🏪 Convert docker run ... commands into compose.yaml 
 📙 File based structure - Dockge won't kidnap your compose files, they are stored on your drive as usual. You can interact with them using normal docker compose commands 
 🚄 Reactive - Everything is just responsive. Progress (Pull/Up/Down) and terminal output are in real-time 
 🐣 Easy-to-use & fancy UI - If you love Uptime Kuma's UI/UX, you will love this one too 
 
 So in this Book we will also make sure to use Dockge for all our installations. It is for sure not necessary but it is so easy and comfortable. In the next page we will do the installation. 

1.6.1.3 Dockge Installation
Assuming you already have installed your Docker VM it is time to install Dockge on top of it to handle all your docker compose files ;) 
 1. Go to the official  dockge page and basically copy the docker compose file that looks like this 
 services:
 dockge:
 image: louislam/dockge:1
 restart: unless-stopped
 ports:
 - 5001:5001
 volumes:
 - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
 - ./data:/app/data
 # Stacks Directory
 # ⚠️ READ IT CAREFULLY. If you did it wrong, your data could end up writing into a WRONG PATH.
 # ⚠️ 1. FULL path only. No relative path (MUST)
 # ⚠️ 2. Left Stacks Path === Right Stacks Path (MUST)
 - /opt/stacks:/opt/stacks
 environment:
 # Tell Dockge where to find the stacks
 - DOCKGE_STACKS_DIR=/opt/stacks
 # This is great for entering the Docker VM console from the WebGUI
 - DOCKGE_ENABLE_CONSOLE=true 
 2. Then open your terminal with your access machine and SSH into it. You added the SSH key of your machine in the Cloud Init section so you should be entering without any interruptions. Simply use 
 ssh username@IP-Address-Docker-VM 
 3. Once inside we will create a new dockge folder with 
 mkdir docgke 
 4. Then we will enter the folder with 
 cd dockge 
 5. Inside this folder we will create the docker compose file by copying and pasting in the docker compose content from above 
 nano compose.yml 
 6. Then save it with  
 CTRL X and hit Y 
 7. Then we will start the dockge container with 
 docker compose up -d 
 8. If everything is green and alright we should be able to access the WebGui at  
 IP-Address-DockerVM:5001 
 9. Then create an account with a username and password. Now, normally I would say you would save the credentials in your Bitwarden account but we have not yet setup that container. However, choose a non typical username and a password of 20 characters and copy paste it somewhere safe s.t you can find it. After we have created a vaultwarden container you will be able to copy paste it inside of it with all your other future credentials.