dotCMS Docker Image#

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Running dotCMS in a container is the recommended practice; below are some key environment variables. See Current Releases to obtain an orchestrator file. See the note for more on the "DOT" notation.

TL;DR Configuration Example#

environment:
    "JAVA_OPTS_MEMORY": '-Xmx4g'
    "DB_BASE_URL": "jdbc:postgresql://db.dotcms.site/dotcms"
    "DB_USERNAME": 'dotcmsdbuser'
    "DB_PASSWORD": 'password'
    "DOT_ES_ENDPOINTS": 'https://es.dotcms.site:9200'
    "DOT_ES_AUTH_BASIC_USER": 'esadmin'
    "DOT_ES_AUTH_BASIC_PASSWORD": 'espassword'
volumes:
    - /volumes/dotcms-share:/data/shared

Docker Configuration#

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Database#

The following options should be set for every dotCMS installation.

OpenSearch (formerly ElasticSearch)#

Here's the documentation reformatted as tables, organized by section.

Mail#

dotCMS expects a global mail provider configured as mail/MailSession.

SMTPS#

SMTP+TLS#

SMTP Servers With Untrusted SSL Certificates#

Java/JVM#

Tomcat#

Simple Debugging#

To debug dotCMS running in a docker container, you will need to remote attach your debugger to the java process running in the container. To do this, you will need to add the following to the CMS_JAVA_OPTS property.

"CMS_JAVA_OPTS": ' -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=*:8000'

and then make sure that port 8000 is mapped and externally available, e.g.:

    ports:
        - “8000:8000”

You should then be able to attach to the debugger remotely.

Mounting Shared Folder#

The dotCMS docker image only requires a single volume to persist data across restarts and a cluster. This is the /data/shared folder in the dotCMS docker image.

Other Important Paths in dotCMS docker image#

Below are a list of other important paths in the dotCMS docker image.

dotCMS expects there to be a global mail provider configured as mail/MailSession. You can configure this by setting environment variables.

Using a Custom starter.zip#

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On first time startup, dotCMS will bootstrap the installation using the starter.zip file found here /srv/dotserver/tomcat-9.0.41/webapps/ROOT/starter.zip. By default dotCMS uses our bare bones "empty starter". You can override this starter.zip by either mounting in a custom starter.zip file to /srv/dotserver/tomcat-9.0.41/webapps/ROOT/starter.zip or by specifing a CUSTOM_STARTER_URL environmental variable. If this variable is set, dotCMS will download this starter file and use it to bootstrap the intital install.

"CUSTOM_STARTER_URL": 'https://repo.dotcms.com/artifactory/libs-release-local/com/dotcms/starter/20230712/starter-20230712.zip'

dotCMS Configuration DOT notation#

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dotCMS allows you to override any config option by setting environmental variables for your docker container.

To set a dotCMS configuration property using an environment variable, you need to first convert it to use the DOT notation, or the format dotCMS uses for ENV variables. Assume you want to update the dotCMS config property cache.default.chain:

• Start with the configuration property name that you want to override.
  • Example: cache.default.chain
• Then convert the name to all uppercase.
  • Example: CACHE.DEFAULT.CHAIN
• Then replace any periods (dots) in the property name with underscores.
  • Example: CACHE_DEFAULT_CHAIN
• Finally add DOT_ to the beginning of the name.
  • Example: DOT_CACHE_DEFAULT_CHAIN

You can then pass this new variable into the dotCMS docker image and it will override what is in the .properties files, e.g.: docker run -e "DOT_CACHE_DEFAULT_CHAIN=com.dotmarketing.business.cache.provider.timedcache.TimedCacheProvider"

See this documentation for more information regarding the proper format for overridding the dotcms config variables.