Caddy in a SmartOS Native Zone
On my home server, I am currently using Caddy as a reverse-proxy. For the public sites such as this Bookstack app, Caddy also provides SSL and other key security requirements.
I have Caddy running in a native SmartOS zone. Caddy isn't that resource-intensive, so it could run on as little as 512 MB of RAM. In my zone, I gave it 2 GB of RAM. This is because I want to compile Caddy from scratch. I also gave it access to free CPU cores. I configured the zone in the SmartOS web UI instead of performing manual configuration.
The following are my steps to get Caddy running in a native SmartOS zone.
First, install the Golang compiler.
pkgin update
pkgin install go122 git-base gcc12 gmake
You might also want to install some creature comforts in your container, such as your preferred text editor. Personally, I like Nano, but you can pick what you want.
pkgin install nano
Next, set the environment variables to run the compiler.
export GOROOT=/opt/local/go122
export GOPATH=/root/go
export PATH=$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin:$PATH
To make installing updates easier, you might want to make this persistent in your shell profile.
nano /root/.profile
source /root/.profile
Next, pull and install the Caddy source code.
go install github.com/caddyserver/xcaddy/cmd/xcaddy@latest
Next, build Caddy. You can add any extra plugins here using –with flags.
xcaddy build --output /opt/local/bin/caddy
Create a user and group for Caddy.
groupadd -g 800 caddy
useradd -u 800 -g caddy -d /var/caddy -s /usr/bin/false caddy
Create a folder for the Caddy server data and give the user and group permissions on it.
mkdir -p /opt/local/etc/caddy
mkdir -p /var/caddy/data
mkdir -p /var/log/caddy
chown -R caddy:caddy /var/caddy /var/log/caddy
chmod 750 /var/caddy /var/log/caddy
Create a Caddy file with the configuration options needed for your exact use cases.
nano /opt/local/etc/caddy/Caddyfile
Create the SMF manifest needed to define the background service.
mkdir -p /var/svc/manifest/site
nano /var/svc/manifest/site/caddy.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1">
<service_bundle type="manifest" name="caddy">
<service name="site/caddy" type="service" version="1">
<create_default_instance enabled="true"/>
<single_instance/>
<dependency name="network" grouping="require_all" restart_on="error" type="service">
<service_fmri value="svc:/milestone/network:default"/>
</dependency>
<dependency name="filesystem" grouping="require_all" restart_on="error" type="service">
<service_fmri value="svc:/system/filesystem/local:default"/>
</dependency>
<exec_method type="method" name="start"
exec="/opt/local/bin/caddy run --config /opt/local/etc/caddy/Caddyfile --adapter caddyfile &"
timeout_seconds="60">
<method_context>
<method_credential user="caddy" group="caddy" privileges="basic,net_privaddr"/>
</method_context>
</exec_method>
<exec_method type="method" name="stop"
exec=":kill"
timeout_seconds="30"/>
<exec_method type="method" name="refresh"
exec="/opt/local/bin/caddy reload --config /opt/local/etc/caddy/Caddyfile --adapter caddyfile"
timeout_seconds="30"/>
<property_group name="startd" type="framework">
<propval name="duration" type="astring" value="child"/>
<propval name="ignore_error" type="astring" value="core,signal"/>
</property_group>
<stability value="Evolving"/>
<template>
<common_name><loctext xml:lang="C">Caddy web server (compiled from source)</loctext></common_name>
</template>
</service>
</service_bundle>
Import and enable the service.
svccfg import /var/svc/manifest/site/caddy.xml
svcadm enable svc:/site/caddy:default
If you change the Caddyfile, you can reload the Caddy configuration using the following command.
svcadm refresh svc:/site/caddy:default
