Actively developed

go-container

Self-hosted Docker admin panel, a simplified Portainer

View on GitHub

Vite

PostgreSQL

JWT

WebSockets

JavaScript

Docker

Overview

A web panel for managing containers, images, networks, volumes, "stacks" (docker-compose projects) and role-based users, all from the browser. The backend acts as an authenticated proxy over the host's Docker Engine API, not a reimplementation of Docker.

It ships as a single Go binary that embeds the production frontend build, so in production it's one container serving both the API and the SPA.

Highlights

Full management of containers, images, networks, volumes and stacks (docker-compose) from a Vue 3 SPA.
Interactive shell over WebSocket inside each container (xterm.js) plus live log streaming.
Role system (viewer / editor / administrator) that revalidates the session against the database on every request, so deactivating a user cuts off access instantly.
Stacks aren't a plain Docker pass-through: they're persisted in Postgres and every operation (deploy, stop, pull, force-deploy) invokes the real docker compose CLI, retaining the record even if a step fails.
A watcher listens for container death events and persists their last logs, so you can see why a container died even after it's removed.
Crash recovery: if the process dies without a clean shutdown (panic, OOM-kill), the leftover log is recovered and stored on the next boot.

Architecture

Go backend with Gin as the router and GORM + PostgreSQL for persistence.
A hand-rolled client talks directly to the Docker socket over the Engine API, without the official SDK.
Vue 3 (Composition API) + Vite + Pinia frontend, no CSS framework.
JWT authentication; WebSockets (shell, logs) also accept the token as a query param since a native browser WebSocket can't send an Authorization header.
Production build: a multi-stage Dockerfile compiles the frontend, embeds it into the Go binary (go:embed), and produces a final image that only needs the binary plus the docker compose CLI.

Quick start

docker-compose.yml (development)

services:
  app:
    build:
      context: ./app
      target: dev
    ports:
      - "9000:9000"
    volumes:
      - ./app:/app
      - /app/tmp
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    environment:
      - DB_HOST=db
      - DB_PORT=5432
      - DB_USER=postgres
      - DB_PASSWORD=postgres
      - DB_NAME=go_container
      - DOCKER_SOCKET_PATH=/var/run/docker.sock
      - CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGIN=http://localhost:5173
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=postgres
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres
      - POSTGRES_DB=go_container
    ports:
      - "5433:5432"
    volumes:
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  front:
    build:
      context: ./front
      target: dev
    ports:
      - "5173:5173"
    volumes:
      - ./front:/app
      - /app/node_modules

volumes:
  pgdata:

Start the environment

docker compose up -d

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
SECRET_KEY	default_secret_key	JWT signing secret — change it in production.
DB_HOST	localhost	PostgreSQL host.
DB_PORT	5432	PostgreSQL port.
DB_USER	postgres	PostgreSQL user.
DB_PASSWORD	postgres	PostgreSQL password.
DB_NAME	go_container	Database name.
DOCKER_SOCKET_PATH	/var/run/docker.sock	Docker Engine socket to proxy.
CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGIN	http://localhost:5173	Single origin allowed by the CORS middleware.
STACKS_DIR	stacks	Directory where each stack's docker-compose.yml is materialized.