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Yesterday, I Don’t Have Spotify reached #2 on Hacker News, getting 700+ points https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42110877. This brought in 13k views and over 10k unique visitors, pretty intense for a single day!

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What really stood out to me was how seamlessly the stack: HTMX, Bun, SQLite, and Dokku handled this traffic spike. No downtime, no slowdowns, no surprises. Just reliable performance.

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This highlights how far efficient, lightweight tools can take you. Instead of over-engineering with costly solutions, this setup handled a massive traffic spike overnight while keeping hosting costs under the price of a coffee per month.

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Sometimes, simplicity outshines the hype around “scale-ready” architectures.

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For anyone learning about infrastructure or preparing to launch a product, I thought this was worth sharing: scaling isn’t always about Kubernetes or microservices. You don’t need to invest heavily in infrastructure to achieve great results. The bare-metal approach can effectively handle real-world challenges, enabling quick and efficient scaling while keeping costs low. It’s a practical and accessible path to foster innovation.

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I Don’t Have Spotify is open source and available here: https://github.com/sjdonado/idonthavespotify. Feel free to explore, contribute, or use it as inspiration for your own projects.

\n",{"_35":91,"_78":92,"_80":93,"_82":94,"_8":95,"_32":96,"_86":97},38,"Self-Hosted Password Manager with Dokku","4/19/2023","Details the process of setting up a self-hosted password manager using Dokku and Vaultwarden.","/posts/self-hosted-password-manager-with-dokku",[47,65],{"_88":98},"\n

Why?

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I relied on 1Password for the last few years, it is robust, and very user-friendly. However, these types of services are prime targets for attacks, one popular example is the Lastpass case. It is definitely not cool to have your sensitive info spread in another data breach. Also, privacy is precious nowadays, whoever has the data, has the power.

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While exploring Open Source alternatives, I found vaultwarden, an unofficial Bitwarden-compatible server written in Rust.

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Migrating data manually is a tedious process, so I first checked how it would be like with Bitwarden. Surprise, surprise, they have it all! You don’t have to do it by hand, it already supports the most popular password managers.

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Web – Import Data Page
$\"Bitwarden$

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PS: It was a relief to discover a well-done user interface, here’s a spoiler:

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macOS app
$\"macos$

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To make it cost effective, I decided to use my current Dokku setup, hosted on Google Cloud and powered by Ubuntu 20.04. If you haven’t heard of Dokku, this is your chance to try it out https://dokku.com/docs/getting-started/installation/.

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So, having in mind the advantages and the infra required, here’s how I did it.

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Prerequisites

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Before we get started, check that you already have the following:

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A server with Dokku installed.
A domain name (letsencrypt will check it).
Local machine with Docker, Git and any SSH client.

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Step by Step

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1. Create Dokku App

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Set your app name and link to the domain (the Dokku Proxy plugin is built in since version 0.5.0)

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dokku apps:create bitwarden\n\n# example: dokku domains:set bitwarden mypasswords.sjdonado.de\ndokku domains:set bitwarden yourdomain.com

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2. Set up TLS certificates

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The Let’s Encrypt plugin automates the generation and renewal of our certificates

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# plugin installation requires root, hence the user change\nsudo dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt.git\n\ndokku letsencrypt:enable bitwarden\n# enable the automatic renewal of certificates \ndokku letsencrypt:cron-job --add\n\n# replace proxy port, default: 5000\ndokku config:set bitwarden DOKKU_PROXY_PORT_MAP=\"http:80:80 https:443:80\"

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3. Set up database

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We’ll use the PostgreSQL plugin

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# setup plugin\nsudo dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-postgres.git\n\n# create a new database for our app\ndokku postgres:create bitwarden\n\n# link the postgres service to the app, DATABASE_URL will be attached to the ENV variables automatically. \ndokku postgres:link bitwarden bitwarden

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4. Set up persistent storage

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We can use the built-in Dokku storage plugin

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dokku storage:ensure-directory bitwarden\n\ndokku storage:mount bitwarden /var/lib/dokku/data/storage/bitwarden:/data

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5. Set up ENV variables

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By default, Bitwarden is open to public signups, although we can restrict it to invitation-only by setting SIGNUPS_ALLOWED to false and providing a valid ADMIN_TOKEN.

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We’re gonna use argon2 to generate a PHC string for the ADMIN_TOKEN ENV variable

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# skip this line if you are a linux user\ndocker run --rm -it ubuntu\n\n$ apt update && apt install openssl argon2\n$ echo -n \"MySecretPassword\" | argon2 \"$(openssl rand -base64 32)\" -e -id -k 65540 -t 3 -p 4\n# output: $argon2id$v=19$m=65540,t=3,p=4$bXBGMENBZUVzT3VUSFErTzQzK25Jck1BN2Z0amFuWjdSdVlIQVZqYzAzYz0$T9m73OdD2mz9+aJKLuOAdbvoARdaKxtOZ+jZcSL9/N0

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For the SMTP_ variables, feel free to use your own SMTP server or comercial solutions with free-tier such as sendgrid

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dokku config:set bitwarden \\\n  DOMAIN=https://mypasswords.sjdonado.de \\\n  SIGNUPS_ALLOWED=false \\\n  ADMIN_TOKEN='$argon2id...' \\\n  SMTP_HOST=smtp.sjdonado.de \\\n  SMTP_FROM=vaultwarden@sjdonado.de \\\n  SMTP_PORT=587 \\\n  SMTP_SECURITY=starttls \\\n  SMTP_USERNAME= \\\n  SMTP_PASSWORD=

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6. Create the Dockerfile

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Let’s create a new folder for the project, the Dockerfile and initialise git

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mkdir yourfolder && cd yourfolder\ngit init\ntouch Dockerfile

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yourfolder/Dockerfile

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FROM vaultwarden/server:latest\n\nEXPOSE 80\n\nENV DB=postgresql

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7. Deploy

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We are almost there! Before to push the changes, we have to set the dokku remote url

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git remote add dokku-bitwarden dokku@yourdomain.com:bitwarden

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And finally

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git add -A && git commit -m \"My bitwarden Dockerfile\"\ngit push dokku master\n\n# output:\ngit push using:  dokku master\nEnumerating objects: 6, done.\nCounting objects: 100% (6/6), done.\nDelta compression using up to 8 threads\nCompressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.\nWriting objects: 100% (6/6), 551 bytes | 551.00 KiB/s, done.\nTotal 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0\n-----> Cleaning up...\n-----> Building bitwarden from Dockerfile\nremote: #1 [internal] load build definition from Dockerfile\nremote: #1 transferring dockerfile: 65B done\nremote: #1 DONE 0.0s\nremote: \nremote: #2 [internal] load .dockerignore\nremote: #2 transferring context: 2B done\nremote: #2 DONE 0.1s\n...

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8. That’s it

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Now you can access the admin panel via https://yourdomain.com/admin with your MySecretPassword (from step 5) and send invitations by email 😎.

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NOTE: Be sure to add your domain when installing the official Bitwarden apps/extensions.

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Chrome Extension
$\"Chrome$

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Wrapping up

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We’ve explored the process of setting up a self-hosted password manager using Dokku. This can be easily replicated on any IaaS provider.

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Now, you can have peace of mind knowing that your passwords are securely stored and easily accessible whenever and wherever you need them.

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Source code available on Github.

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Happy hacking!

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\n","currentTag","root","actionData","errors"]

Blog

Managing 10k+ Visitors Overnight with Bare Metal

Self-Hosted Password Manager with Dokku