Network and Domain Planning

View as Markdown

TailStatic requires a clear domain strategy to work correctly. You need to decide how you will access the dashboard and how your visitors will access your sites.

The Dashboard Domain

The TailStatic dashboard should have its own dedicated domain or subdomain (e.g., dashboard.yourdomain.com). This domain is used exclusively for management and should not be shared with any of the sites you host.

Site Domains

Each site you create in TailStatic can have its own domain (e.g., mysite.com) or a subdomain of your main domain (e.g., blog.yourdomain.com). TailStatic uses "host-based routing" to determine which site to serve when a visitor hits your server.

Ports and Reverse Proxies

By default, TailStatic listens on internal ports within the Docker network. To serve traffic securely over the internet, you should use a reverse setup like Nginx or Caddy.

  • Internal Port: The TailStatic service typically runs on an internal port (e.g. 5000).
  • External Access: Your reverse proxy should listen on ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) (recommended) and forward traffic to the internal TailStatic port.

Forwarded Headers

Because TailStatic sits behind a reverse proxy, it needs to know the original visitor's IP address and whether the connection was made over HTTPS. You must configure your reverse proxy to send the correct "X-Forwarded" headers.

  • X-Forwarded-For: The visitor's IP address.
  • X-Forwarded-Proto: The protocol used (usually https).
  • X-Forwarded-Host: The original host requested by the visitor.

Next Step

Once you have decided on your dashboard domain, you can proceed with Docker setup.