Running Portainer Edge Agent using docker-compose and systemd

In this post we’ll show how to run the Portainer Edge Agent on a computer using docker-compose and systemd. In case you haven’t installed docker or docker-compose, see How to install docker and docker-compose on Ubuntu in 30 seconds.

If you don’t have a Portainer instance running to which the Edge Agent can connect, see Running Portainer using docker-compose and systemd!

First, create the directory where the docker-compose.yml will live and edit it:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/portainer-edge-agent
sudo nano /var/lib/portainer-edge-agent/docker-compose.yml

Now paste this config file:

version: "3"

services:
  portainer_edge_agent:
    image: portainer/agent
    command: -H unix:///var/run/docker.sock
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /:/host
      - /var/lib/docker/volumes:/var/lib/docker/volumes
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - portainer_agent_data:/data
    environment:
      - CAP_HOST_MANAGEMENT=1
      - EDGE=1
      - EDGE_ID=[YOUR EDGE ID]
      - EDGE_KEY=[YOUR EDGE KEY]

volumes:
  portainer_agent_data:

Don’t forget to fill in [YOUR EDGE ID] and [YOUR EDGE KEY]. You can find those by creating a new endpoint in your Portainer instance.

Now we can create the systemd service that will automatically start the Edge Agent:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/PortainerEdgeAgent.service

[Unit]
Description=PortainerEdgeAgent
Requires=docker.service
After=docker.service

[Service]
Restart=always
User=root
Group=docker
WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/portainer-edge-agent
# Shutdown container (if running) when unit is stopped
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml down
# Start container when unit is started
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up
# Stop container when unit is stopped
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml down

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now we can can enable and start the agent:

sudo systemctl enable PortainerEdgeAgent.service
sudo systemctl start PortainerEdgeAgent.service