HOWTO nginx & letsencrypt on Debian GNU/Linux stretch/9

The goal is to configure a nginx server with automatic Let’s Encrypt renewal, assuming a new dedicated virtual machine running a pristine Debian GNU/Linux stretch/9.

Install docker-compose:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates dirmngr
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://p80.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-keys 58118E89F3A912897C070ADBF76221572C52609D
echo deb https://apt.dockerproject.org/repo debian-stretch main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker-engine
sudo bash -c 'curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.13.0/docker-compose-`uname -s`-`uname -m` > /usr/local/bin/docker-compose'
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Assuming the FQDN of the machine is download.securedrop.club and the person responsible can be reached at admin@securedrop.cub, create the docker-compose.yml with:

cat > docker-compose.yml <<EOF
version: '2'
services:
  web:
    image: nginx:1.13.3
    volumes:
      - ./html:/usr/share/nginx/html:ro
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=download.securedrop.club
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=download.securedrop.club
      - LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=admin@securedrop.club
  proxy:
    image: jwilder/nginx-proxy
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
      - ./certs:/etc/nginx/certs:ro
      - /etc/nginx/vhost.d
      - /usr/share/nginx/html
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - web
  letsencrypt:
    image: jrcs/letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./certs:/etc/nginx/certs:rw
    volumes_from:
      - proxy
EOF

and run docker-compose up in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file.