The Notion-quality wiki, on your own VM

1. 01

   Create a Docker VM and a bucket

   The docker library script installs Docker CE and Compose on first boot. Standard (2 vCPU, 4 GiB) is plenty for most teams.

   shellCopy

   $ edge compute create --name wiki --size s-2vcpu-4gb \
       --image ubuntu-24 --region london --script docker
   $ edge storage create outline-uploads

2. 02

   Write the compose file

   Outline listens on localhost. Put Nginx or Caddy on :443 in front of it as the CDN origin.

   docker-compose.ymlCopy

   services:
     outline:
       image: docker.getoutline.com/outlinewiki/outline:latest
       env_file: .env
       ports: ["127.0.0.1:3000:3000"]
       depends_on: [postgres, redis]
       restart: always
     postgres:
       image: postgres:16
       environment:
         POSTGRES_USER: outline
         POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${PG_PASSWORD}
         POSTGRES_DB: outline
       volumes: ["pg-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data"]
     redis:
       image: redis:7
   volumes:
     pg-data:

3. 03

   Point uploads at Edge Storage

   Outline speaks S3, so Edge Storage is a drop-in. Add your identity provider in the same file; Outline has no password login.

   .envCopy

   URL=https://wiki.acme.com
   SECRET_KEY=<openssl rand -hex 32>
   UTILS_SECRET=<openssl rand -hex 32>
   DATABASE_URL=postgres://outline:<password>@postgres:5432/outline
   REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379
   PGSSLMODE=disable
   
   FILE_STORAGE=s3
   AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<edge-access-key>
   AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<edge-secret-key>
   AWS_REGION=us-east-1
   AWS_S3_UPLOAD_BUCKET_URL=https://storage.edge.network
   AWS_S3_UPLOAD_BUCKET_NAME=outline-uploads
   AWS_S3_FORCE_PATH_STYLE=true
   AWS_S3_ACL=private
   
   OIDC_CLIENT_ID=<client-id>
   OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=<client-secret>
   OIDC_AUTH_URI=https://sso.acme.com/authorize
   OIDC_TOKEN_URI=https://sso.acme.com/token
   OIDC_USERINFO_URI=https://sso.acme.com/userinfo

4. 04

   Start it and put the CDN in front

   SSL is issued in under a minute. The CDN passes the collaboration WebSocket through to the VM.

   shellCopy

   $ docker compose up -d
   $ edge cdn create --name wiki
   $ edge cdn domains add cdn-a1b2c3 \
       --domain wiki.acme.com \
       --origin https://<vm-ip>

5. 05

   Back up nightly

   Attachments already live in the bucket. This adds a daily database dump next to them.

   /etc/cron.daily/outline-backupCopy

   #!/bin/sh
   set -e
   . /etc/edge.env   # exports EDGE_API_KEY for the Edge CLI
   cd /srv/outline
   docker compose exec -T postgres pg_dump -U outline outline \
     | gzip > /tmp/outline.sql.gz
   edge storage cp /tmp/outline.sql.gz \
     "outline-uploads/backups/$(date +%F).sql.gz"

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