Self Hosted Writefreely

Compiling WriteFreely — a self-hosted, minimalist blogging platform — from Go source and running it on EasyPanel via Docker Compose.

Stack:

• Docker / Docker Compose
• EasyPanel (PaaS management UI)
• Go 1.23 (language)
• SQLite (database)
• Node.js + LESS (compiling static assets)
• Reverse proxy: EasyPanel (TLS / HTTPS management)

1. Goal

• Run WriteFreely on EasyPanel under my own domain (ozturk.ai)
• Get the TLS certificate through EasyPanel
• Persist the configuration to a volume
• Compile the required static files (templates, CSS)
• Resolve any errors as they come up

2. The Compose setup

The following minimal setup was entered into EasyPanel’s Docker Compose tab:

services:
  wf_buildbox:
    image: golang:1.23-alpine
    user: "0:0"
    tty: true
    stdin_open: true
    working_dir: /srv/wf
    volumes:
      - wf_home:/srv/wf
    command: ["/bin/sh","-c","mkdir -p /srv/wf && tail -f /dev/null"]
    expose:
      - "8080"

volumes:
  wf_home:

With this setup:

• The container stays up (never exits)
• Console access is active
• All build output persists in the /srv/wf volume

3. Installing the required tools

From the console (EasyPanel → Console):

apk update
apk add --no-cache git build-base nodejs npm sqlite-dev ca-certificates bash

4. Fetching the source

cd /srv/wf
mkdir -p src bin data
cd src
git clone https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely.git
cd writefreely

5. Building

WriteFreely now requires Go 1.23, which is why the golang:1.23-alpine image was chosen. Make sure go.mod is present in the current directory.

go version   # should be go1.23.x
go build -v -tags='sqlite' -o /srv/wf/bin/writefreely ./cmd/writefreely/

Errors resolved along the way:

❌ go.mod file not found — was in the wrong directory ❌ go: go.mod requires go >= 1.23.0 — switched the image to golang:1.23-alpine

6. Compiling static assets

npm i -g less less-plugin-clean-css clean-css
cd less
CSSDIR=../static/css
lessc app.less   --clean-css="--s1 --advanced" ${CSSDIR}/write.css
lessc fonts.less --clean-css="--s1 --advanced" ${CSSDIR}/fonts.css
lessc icons.less --clean-css="--s1 --advanced" ${CSSDIR}/icons.css
lessc prose.less --clean-css="--s1 --advanced" ${CSSDIR}/prose.css
cd ../prose
npm install
npm run build

7. Configuration and database

/srv/wf/bin/writefreely -c /srv/wf/data/config.ini --config
/srv/wf/bin/writefreely -c /srv/wf/data/config.ini --init-db
/srv/wf/bin/writefreely -c /srv/wf/data/config.ini --gen-keys

8. Running it

Important: working_dir must be the repo root (that’s where templates and static live).

New Compose:

services:
  wf_buildbox:
    image: golang:1.23-alpine
    user: "0:0"
    working_dir: /srv/wf/src/writefreely
    volumes:
      - wf_home:/srv/wf
    command: ["/srv/wf/bin/writefreely","-c","/srv/wf/data/config.ini"]
    expose:
      - "8080"

volumes:
  wf_home:

Error resolved:

❌ load templates: no such file or directory → set working_dir to /srv/wf/src/writefreely

9. Domain settings (EasyPanel)

• Domain: ozturk.ai
• Service: wf_buildbox
• Internal port: 8080
• TLS: Let’s Encrypt (Cloudflare DNS only → grey-clouded)

10. Errors and fixes

11. Current state

• https://ozturk.ai is live
• TLS certificate is managed by EasyPanel
• base_url and host settings are correct
• No errors in the console

12. Extra notes

• To create an admin user: bash /srv/wf/bin/writefreely -c /srv/wf/data/config.ini --create-admin admin:StrongPassword
• EasyPanel manages the reverse proxy, so HTTPS must stay disabled on WriteFreely’s own side.
• Backing up the volume (/srv/wf/data) is enough.

Result

Minimalist blogging infrastructure (WriteFreely), modern reverse proxy management (EasyPanel), a persistent volume, secure TLS, and a systematic run through every error along the way — all done.