Docker Cluster

The Docker Cluster deployment runs RAMP in a high-availability configuration with multiple API instances, load balancing, centralized file storage, and a Redis backplane for real-time messaging. This is the recommended setup for production environments with more than 10 users.

Architecture

Component	Instances	Purpose
API	3 (load balanced)	Backend application servers
Web UI	2 (load balanced)	Frontend static file servers
Nginx	1	Load balancer and reverse proxy
PostgreSQL	1	Relational database
Redis	1	Cache + SignalR backplane
MinIO	1	S3-compatible file storage
LDAP	1	Enterprise authentication

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Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop 4.0+ (Windows/Mac) or Docker Engine 20.10+ (Linux)
• Docker Compose 2.0+
• Available RAM: 8 GB minimum (16 GB recommended)
• Disk Space: 20 GB minimum

# Verify installation
docker --version       # 24.0.0 or higher
docker-compose --version  # 2.0.0 or higher

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Quick start

1. Navigate to the RAMP directory:

   cd /path/to/RAMP

2. Create a .env file with secure passwords:

   DB_PASSWORD=YourSecureDbPassword123!
   LDAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=YourLdapPassword123!
   LDAP_JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret_min_32_chars_long!
   JWT_SECRET=YourApiJwtSecretAtLeast32CharsLong!
   MINIO_ROOT_USER=admin
   MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=YourMinioPassword123!

   Danger

   Always set custom passwords for production. Default passwords are insecure.

3. Start the cluster (first run takes 5—10 minutes to build images):

   docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml up -d --build

4. Monitor startup progress:

   docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml ps

   Wait for all services to show Up (healthy). Typical startup times:

   • Infrastructure (Redis, PostgreSQL, LDAP, MinIO): 30—60 seconds
   • API instances: 60—90 seconds (includes database migrations)
   • Web UI + load balancer: 10—20 seconds after APIs are healthy

5. Open your browser at http://localhost.

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Default credentials

RAMP admin

Field	Value
Email	admin@ramp.local
Password	Admin123!

Danger

Change this password immediately after first login.

MinIO console (file storage)

Field	Value
URL	http://localhost:9001
Username	admin
Password	minio_secure_password_change_me

Use the MinIO console to view uploaded files, create buckets, monitor storage usage, and configure access policies.

LDAP admin panel

Field	Value
URL	http://localhost:17170
Username	admin
Password	LdapAdmin123!

PostgreSQL

Field	Value
Host	localhost
Port	5432
Database	ramp
Username	ramp
Password	RampDbPassword123!

Connection string: postgresql://ramp:RampDbPassword123!@localhost:5432/ramp

Redis

Field	Value
Host	localhost
Port	6379
Password	None (no authentication by default)

# Connect to Redis
docker exec -it ramp-redis redis-cli

> PING
PONG
> KEYS RAMP:*

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Verification

After startup, verify the cluster is working correctly:

Check service health

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml ps

Expected output: all 10 containers running, with API, database, Redis, MinIO, and LDAP showing (healthy).

Test the load balancer

curl http://localhost/_health

Test the API via the load balancer

curl http://localhost/_api/signalrmonitoring/health

Expected response includes:

{
  "status": "healthy",
  "signalr": {
    "hubsInitialized": true,
    "redisBackplaneEnabled": true,
    "redisConnected": true
  }
}

Verify SignalR real-time messaging

1. Open two browser windows (use different browsers or incognito mode).
2. Log in to RAMP in both windows.
3. Navigate to the same template in both windows.
4. In Window 1, lock a field by clicking on it.
5. Window 2 should immediately show the field is locked.

This works because the two windows connect to different API instances, and the lock event is broadcast through the Redis backplane.

Test instance failover

1. Open RAMP in your browser and navigate around.

2. Stop one API instance:

   docker stop ramp-api-1

3. Refresh the page. The application continues working because requests are routed to the remaining instances.

4. Restart the instance:

   docker start ramp-api-1

Test file uploads with MinIO

1. Log in to RAMP and upload an attachment to an instance.
2. Open the MinIO console at http://localhost:9001.
3. Verify the file appears in the ramp-uploads bucket.
4. Download the file from RAMP to confirm the round trip.

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Common operations

View logs

# All containers
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml logs -f

# Specific service
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml logs -f ramp-api-1

# Last 100 lines
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml logs --tail=100 ramp-api-1

Restart services

# Restart a single instance
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml restart ramp-api-1

# Restart all API instances
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml restart ramp-api-1 ramp-api-2 ramp-api-3

Stop the cluster

Stop (keep data)

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml stop

Down (keep volumes)

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml down

Down + delete data

# WARNING: Deletes ALL data including database, files, and cache
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml down -v

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Backup and restore

PostgreSQL

Backup

# Plain SQL
docker exec ramp-db pg_dump -U ramp -d ramp > ramp_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d).sql

# Compressed
docker exec ramp-db pg_dump -U ramp -d ramp | gzip > ramp_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d).sql.gz

Restore

# Stop API instances first
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml stop ramp-api-1 ramp-api-2 ramp-api-3

# Restore
cat ramp_backup_20260110.sql | docker exec -i ramp-db psql -U ramp -d ramp

# Restart API instances
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml start ramp-api-1 ramp-api-2 ramp-api-3

MinIO files

# Backup MinIO data
docker exec ramp-minio tar czf - /data | cat > minio_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz

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Troubleshooting

Containers will not start

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml logs

Common causes:

• Ports already in use (80, 443, 5432, 6379, 9000, 17170)
• Insufficient memory (need 8 GB+ RAM)
• Docker Desktop not running

# Check port conflicts
lsof -i :80,5432,6379     # Linux/Mac
netstat -ano | findstr "80 5432 6379"  # Windows

API health check fails

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml logs ramp-api-1 | grep ERROR

Common causes: database migration errors, Redis connection failure, MinIO connection failure.

Solution:

# Restart infrastructure first
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml restart ramp-db ramp-redis ramp-minio

# Wait 30 seconds, then restart API instances
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml restart ramp-api-1 ramp-api-2 ramp-api-3

Cannot log in

# Verify admin user exists
docker exec -it ramp-db psql -U ramp -d ramp \
  -c "SELECT \"Email\", \"UserName\" FROM \"AspNetUsers\" WHERE \"Email\" = 'admin@ramp.local';"

If the admin user is missing, database migrations may not have run. Check the API logs for migration errors.

SignalR not working

curl http://localhost/_api/signalrmonitoring/health

If redisConnected is false:

# Verify Redis is running
docker exec ramp-redis redis-cli PING
# Expected: PONG

# Restart API instances
docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml restart ramp-api-1 ramp-api-2 ramp-api-3

Files not uploading

Open the MinIO console at http://localhost:9001 and check whether the ramp-uploads bucket exists. If it is missing, create it manually in the MinIO console.

LDAP authentication not working

# Test LDAP connection
docker exec ramp-ldap /app/lldap healthcheck

# View LDAP logs
docker logs ramp-ldap

Verify users exist in the LDAP admin panel at http://localhost:17170 under ou=people,dc=ramp,dc=local.

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Monitoring

Container resource usage

# All containers
docker stats

# API instances only
docker stats ramp-api-1 ramp-api-2 ramp-api-3

Redis monitoring

# Real-time operations
docker exec -it ramp-redis redis-cli monitor

# Memory usage
docker exec ramp-redis redis-cli INFO memory

Database monitoring

docker exec -it ramp-db psql -U ramp -d ramp

-- Active connections
SELECT count(*) FROM pg_stat_activity;

-- Database size
SELECT pg_size_pretty(pg_database_size('ramp'));

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Performance tuning

Add more API instances

Edit docker-compose.cluster.yml to add ramp-api-4, ramp-api-5, etc., then:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml up -d

Increase PostgreSQL connections

Add to the ramp-db environment in docker-compose.cluster.yml:

- POSTGRES_MAX_CONNECTIONS=200

Increase Redis memory

Edit the Redis command in docker-compose.cluster.yml:

ramp-redis:
  command: redis-server --appendonly yes --maxmemory 4gb --maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru

Restart after making changes:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.cluster.yml restart ramp-redis

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Production deployment checklist

• Change all default passwords (create .env file with secure values)
• Configure SSL/TLS (add certificates to Nginx load balancer config)
• Set up automated PostgreSQL backups
• Configure external DNS (point your domain to the load balancer)
• Enable authentication for Redis (if exposed to the network)
• Review security headers in the Nginx config
• Set up monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana, or similar)
• Configure log aggregation (ELK stack, Splunk, or similar)
• Test disaster recovery (restore from backup)
• Document runbooks for your operations team

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Related topics

Docker Full Single-server production deployment with PostgreSQL, LDAP, and Nginx

Docker Lite Minimal Docker deployment with SQLite for evaluation and small teams

Application Settings Reference Complete reference for RAMP's appsettings.json configuration