Halo

stack CMS / Web

Website and blogging platform with a rich editor, themes, plugins, comments and pages, run from a web console. This one runs on Postgres.

Source code

Install Halo

It isn't in the main Portainer Templates list yet, so use this one. Portainer takes one URL at a time, so it swaps out whatever list you had before.

In Portainer, head to Settings --> App Templates, paste this in as the URL and save.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NotAFlightRisk/portainer-templates-extras/main/templates.json

Open App Templates and pick Halo.
Fill in Database password. Everything else can stay as it is.
Hit Deploy the stack, then open http://<your-server>:8091 in a browser.

The same file Portainer deploys. It reads its settings from a .env next to it.

services:
  halo:
    image: halohub/halo:2
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "${HALO_PORT:-8091}:8090"
    environment:
      TZ: ${HALO_TZ:-UTC}
      SPRING_R2DBC_URL: r2dbc:pool:postgresql://postgres/halo
      SPRING_R2DBC_USERNAME: halo
      SPRING_R2DBC_PASSWORD: ${HALO_DB_PASSWORD:?Set a database password}
      SPRING_SQL_INIT_PLATFORM: postgresql
    volumes:
      - halo-data:/root/.halo2
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy

  postgres:
    image: postgres:17-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: halo
      POSTGRES_USER: halo
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${HALO_DB_PASSWORD:?Set a database password}
    volumes:
      - postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U halo -d halo"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

volumes:
  halo-data:
  postgres-data:

Fill in the blanks, as Halo won't start without them.

# Database password (required) - Generate one with: openssl rand -hex 32. Keep it the same when you redeploy, or Halo can't reach its database.
HALO_DB_PASSWORD=

# Host port for the web UI
HALO_PORT=8091

# Timezone - Like Europe/London. Post dates on the site use it.
HALO_TZ=UTC

Grab the file and start it.

mkdir halo && cd halo
curl -fsSL -o compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NotAFlightRisk/portainer-templates-extras/main/apps/halo/compose.yml
# save the .env tab here as .env first
docker compose up -d

Before you start

Set the database password before you deploy (openssl rand -hex 32 makes a good one), since the stack won't start without it. Then open http://<your-host>:8091 (or whichever port you picked) from the address you'll actually use, since the setup page saves it as the site's External URL. That page also creates the admin, and whoever reaches it first gets to, so do it straight away. The console is at /console. The sample post, About page, menu and category it starts with are in Chinese whatever language you pick, so rename or delete them there. Posts and settings live in Postgres, in the postgres-data volume, and uploads, themes and plugins in halo-data. Docs (in Chinese): docs.halo.run

Settings

What the Portainer form asks for. With compose they go in the .env file instead.

Variable	What it's for	Default
`HALO_DB_PASSWORD`	Database password (required) Generate one with: openssl rand -hex 32. Keep it the same when you redeploy, or Halo can't reach its database.	Needs filling in
`HALO_PORT`	Host port for the web UI	`8091`
`HALO_TZ`	Timezone Like Europe/London. Post dates on the site use it.	`UTC`

Services

The containers this stack runs, with ports as they come out of the box.

Service	Image	Ports
`halo`	`halohub/halo:2`	`8091:8090`
`postgres`	`postgres:17-alpine`	Internal only

Install Halo

Before you start

Settings

Services

More apps

RSSHub

AFFiNE

Apache Answer

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