How to Install Exalate for Zendesk on Docker

You can host Exalate for Zendesk on your own server. To do so, you need to install Exalate on Docker.

Note: You need to install Docker. Check the docker documentation for more details.

How to Install Exalate for Zendesk on Docker

1. Create directory and create docker-compose.yml file

Create a directory to hold the docker-compose file:

cd ~
mkdir exalate-zendesknode

Create or download a docker-compose.yml file

Note: Click docker-compose.yml to download the file.

Important: We recommend using the latest version of Exalate for Zendesk. It can be found in the Release History. Enter the latest version in the image tag. For example, in image: idalko/zendesknode:5.12.0, the version of Exalate for Zendesk is 5.12.0 .

The docker-compose.yml file should contain the following information in it:

version: '2'

services:
  database:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: postgres:12.19
    volumes:
      - ./persist/db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./createdb.sh:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init-user-db.sh
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=changeme
      - DB_NAME=zendesknode
      - DB_USER=idalko
      - DB_PASS=idalko
    networks:
      - dbnet

  zendesknode:
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 9302:9002

    #
    # Change the image tag to the required version
    # Check Release History on docs.exalate.com for an overview
    #
    image: idalko/zendesknode:5.12.0
    depends_on:
      - database #wait for postgres to be started, not for ready
    volumes:
      - ./persist/home:/opt/zendesknode/data
    environment:
      # Add your environment settings here
      - ZENDESKNODE_PG_HOST=database
      - ZENDESKNODE_PG_DB=exalate?gssEncMode=disable
      - ZENDESKNODE_PG_USER=idalko
      - ZENDESKNODE_PG_PWD=idalko
      - ZENDESKNODE_PORT=9302

     #As part of the security improvements, Exalate 5.5.0 and above validates the origin header
     #that the browser is sending upon every request to Exalate.
     #In order to validate the origin header, Exalate needs to know what is the URL 
     #leading to it.
     #When deploying Exalate to Docker one needs to put an environment variable NODE_SELF_URL.
     #Example:
     # When you deploy Exalate onto a server, you configure a DNS rule such that 
     #whenever people navigate to foo.com, they reach your server's Exalate. 
     #You set up SSL so that https://foo.com leads to your Exalate on your server.
     #Now you need to set environment variable 

      - NODE_SELF_URL=https://foo.com 

     #for your Exalate docker container.

    networks:
      - dbnet
      - default

networks:
  dbnet:
    driver: bridge
  default:
    driver: bridge

Connecting to Postgres 10 or Higher

For unencrypted connections from Exalate to a Postgres version 10 or higher, you need to disable gssEncMode with the following setting:

# exalate is the name of the database on the postgres instance
#
ZENDESKNODE_PG_DB=exalate?gssEncMode=disable

2. Ensure that a correct database is setup using a createdb.sh

Create or download a createdb.sh file (referenced from docker-compose.yml):

Note: Click createdb.sh to download the file.

The file should contain the following information:

#!/bin/bash
  
TEST=`psql -U postgres <<-EOSQL
   SELECT 1 FROM pg_database WHERE datname='$DB_NAME';
EOSQL`
  
echo "******CREATING DOCKER DATABASE******"
if [[ $TEST == "1" ]]; then
    # database exists
    # $? is 0
    exit 0
else
psql -U postgres <<-EOSQL
   CREATE ROLE $DB_USER WITH LOGIN ENCRYPTED PASSWORD '${DB_PASS}' SUPERUSER;
EOSQL
  
psql -U postgres <<-EOSQL
   CREATE DATABASE $DB_NAME WITH OWNER $DB_USER ENCODING 'UNICODE' LC_COLLATE 'C' LC_CTYPE 'C' TEMPLATE template0;
EOSQL
  
psql -U postgres <<-EOSQL
   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE $DB_NAME TO $DB_USER;
EOSQL
fi
  
echo ""
echo "******DOCKER DATABASE CREATED******"

Ensure that the volumes are included in your backup strategy:

persist

3. Set Environment Variables if necessary

Below, you can find the environment variables used for the app container. All of them are optional, and in the given example, we've overridden ZENDESKNODE_PG_DB, ZENDESKNODE_PG_USER, and ZENDESKNODE_PG_PWD just to show how to pass different credentials to the Exalate application.

Full list of environment variables:

Variable name

Default value

Example

Description

HTTP_HEADER

n/a

HTTP_HEADERS="TestName1: testAddHeader1"

Allows additional information to pass between the clients and the server through the request header.

ZENDESKNODE_PG_HOST

ZENDESKNODE_PG_HOST=database

ZENDESKNODE_PG_HOST=db.acme.com

Tells the Exalate application where the Postgres database to connect to is hosted.

ZENDESKNODE_PG_DB

ZENDESKNODE_PG_DB=exalate

Tells the Exalate application what is the Postgres database name for the Exalate application.

ZENDESKNODE_PG_USER

ZENDESKNODE_PG_USER=idalko

ZENDESKNODE_PG_USER=exalate

Tells the Exalate application what is the Postgres database username for the Exalate application to perform queries with.

ZENDESKNODE_PG_PWD

ZENDESKNODE_PG_PWD=idalko

ZENDESKNODE_PG_PWD=secret

Tells the Exalate application what is the Postgres database user's password for the Exalate application to perform queries with.

ZENDESKNODE_PORT

ZENDESKNODE_PORT=9000

ZENDESKNODE_PORT=8080

Tells which port to start the Exalate application on.

Note that this is the port within the exalatezendesknode_zendesknode_1 container, thus if this variable is changed (for example to 80), the

    ports:
      - 9000:9000

should also be changed to

    ports:
      - 8080:8080

ZENDESKNODE_SMTP_HOST_NAME

ZENDESKNODE_SMTP_HOST_NAME=mail.server.com

ZENDESKNODE_SMTP_HOST_NAME=smtp.gmail.com