Docker image for Headwind MDM

Headwind MDM is an open source mobile device management software for Android devices. It has been originally designed for Ubuntu Linux. This image helps to run Headwind MDM on any Linux.

Headwind MDM project URL: https://h-mdm.com

Summary

The image is based on Ubuntu 22.04 and Tomcat 9.

It doesn't include PostgreSQL and certbot, so they need to be started in separate containers or on the host machine.

As an alternative, you can use docker-compose to run Headwind MDM and all required packages (certbot, PostgreSQL) on a fresh virtual machine with the most common options (see below).

Building the image from the source code

Before building the image, review the default variables (in particular the Headwind MDM URL) in the Dockerfile and change them if required.

The build command is:

docker build -t headwindmdm/hmdm:0.1.4 .

Prerequisites

1. Create the PostgreSQL database for Headwind MDM, and use the environment variables SQL_HOST, SQL_BASE, SQL_USER, SQL_PASS to define the database access credentials.

Default values are: SQL_HOST=localhost, SQL_BASE=hmdm, SQL_USER=hmdm, SQL_PASS=topsecret

2. If you want to use HTTPS, install certbot and generate the certificate for the domain where Headwind MDM should be installed.

   certbot certonly --standalone --force-renewal -d your-mdm-domain.com

Running the Docker container

Works with the external PostgreSQL database only. Default database installation on localhost DOES NOT WORK!

Please set up your domain name when running Headwind MDM!

To create the container, use the command:

docker run -d -p 443:8443 -p 31000:31000 -e SQL_HOST=database.host -e SQL_BASE=hmdm -e SQL_USER=hmdm -e SQL_PASS=password -e BASE_DOMAIN=build.h-mdm.com -v /etc/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt -v $(pwd)/volumes/work:/usr/local/tomcat/work --name="hmdm" headwindmdm/hmdm:0.1.2

If everything is fine, Headwind MDM will become available via the url https://your-mdm-domain.com in a few seconds.

To view logs, use the command:

docker logs hmdm

Stop and start the container:

docker stop hmdm
docker start hmdm

Connect to the container for debugging:

docker exec -it hmdm /bin/bash

Configuration of Headwind MDM

The container is configured by the environment variables.

The full list of variables can be found in the Dockerfile.

First start and subsequent starts

At first start, Headwind MDM performs the initialization:

• Creates the config files using the environment
• Initializes the database
• Converts the LetsEncrypt's (or your own) SSL certificates to a JKS keystore

Subsequent starts of the container skip this step, but you can force the configuration renewal by setting the following environment variable:

FORCE_RECONFIGURE=true

When this variable is set to true, the configuration is always re-created by the Headwind MDM entry point script.

Running with the most common options by Docker Compose

Docker-Compose requires just two files to start Headwind MDM: .env docker-compose.yaml

For a simple start of Headwind MDM on a fresh virtual machine, run the following commands.

apt install -y docker-compose
cd hmdm-docker
cp .env.example .env
vim .env              # Replace ADMIN_EMAIL and BASE_DOMAIN to your values
docker-compose up

The command docker-compose up will start Headwind MDM in the interactive mode where you can easily trace and fix errors.

Once Headwind MDM start is successful, you can start it in the background (detached) mode by using the command:

docker-compose up -d

To view logs, use the command:

docker-compose logs hmdm -f

To stop (but not remove) the service, use the command:

docker-compose stop

Using this Docker container with the Premium version

To run Premium version, you need to change the HMDM_VARIANT, DOWNLOAD_CREDENTIALS and HMDM_URL variables in the .env file. To get the trial URLs, credentials and license keys, please fill the form at

https://h-mdm.com/contact-us/

Attaching to the container

You may need to attach to the container to change the Headwind MDM configuration in order to adjust some advanced settings.

To find the container ID, use the command

docker ps

Find the container ID of the image headwindmdm/hmdm:0.1.4, then run the command

docker exec -it containerid /bin/bash

For example:

docker exec -it e81d47acec21 /bin/bash

Notice: the container needs to be started before attaching to it.

Resetting the container

If something goes wrong, you may wish to reset the container and reinstall it from scratch. The command

docker-compose down

may not be enough, as it doesn't clear the downloaded files and initialized database.

To wipe all data, remove all entries in the volumes subdirectory:

rm -rf volumes/db volumes/work

(we recommend to keep the volumes/letsencrypt subdirectory to avoid problems with exceeding the LetsEncrypt certificate generation threshold).

There is also an interactive script removing the data:

./remove-all.sh

As an alternative, you can set the parameter in the .env file:

FORCE_RECONFIGURE=true

Important: this parameter should be unset after the initial setup, otherwise you may lose the application settings.