Server

Sonar is self-hosted only, so to get started you must install it to your own server.

Prerequisites

To install the Sonar server, you must have:

• A Linux server with a public IP address (<PUBLIC_IP>) with Docker and Docker Compose installed.
• A registered domain name (<DOMAIN>).

DNS configuration

In order for Sonar to work, it must be configured to act as a nameserver for <DOMAIN>. To do this, go to your domain registrar's control panel and add a new nameserver with the domain name ns.<DOMAIN> and the IP address <PUBLIC_IP>, then add an NS record for your <DOMAIN> pointing to the created nameserver, i.e. ns.<DOMAIN>.

info

Let's say you have the domain example.com and a server with the public IP address 123.123.123.123. In the registrar's control panel you must add a new nameserver ns.example.com with IP address 123.123.123.123. Then, you need to add an NS record for example.com:

example.com	record type	value
@	NS	ns.example.com

To ensure that everything is configured correctly, you can use the following commands:

$ host -t ns <DOMAIN>
<DOMAIN> name server ns.<DOMAIN>.

$ host -t a ns.<DOMAIN>
ns.<DOMAIN> has address <PUBLIC_IP>

Docker compose

The recommended way to install the Sonar backend on your server is to use a Docker Compose file. Create a docker-compose.yml file on your server with the following content:

docker-compose.yml

services:
  sonar:
    restart: always
    image: ghcr.io/nt0xa/sonar:1
    ports:
      - 21:21       # FTP
      - 25:25       # SMTP
      - 53:53/udp   # DNS
      - 80:80       # HTTP
      - 443:443     # HTTPS
      - 31337:31337 # REST API
      - 31338:31338 # Webhooks (currently only used by Lark messenger)
    volumes:
      - ./tls:/opt/app/tls               # TLS certificates persistance
      - ./config.yml:/opt/app/config.yml # Config file: see "Configuration"

  db:
    image: postgres:16
    restart: always
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: sonar
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: <POSTGRES_PASSWORD> # Put any random password here
      POSTGRES_DB: sonar
    volumes:
      - ./postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data # Database persistance

Configuration file

To configure the Sonar backend create a config.toml file in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file.

config.toml

# Your server public IP address.
ip = "<PUBLIC_IP>"

# Your configured domain name.
domain = "<DOMAIN>"

[db]
# Database connection string. Use values from `docker-compose.yml`.
dsn = "postgres://sonar:<POSTGRES_PASSWORD>@db:5432/sonar?sslmode=disable"

[tls]
# Two types are currently supported: "letsencrypt" and "custom".
# If you don't have any certificates, just use "letsencrypt" and certificates will be issued
# and renewed automatically.
# Use "custom" only if you already have a long-lived wildcard TLS certificate for your domain and
# you want to use it.
type = "letsencrypt"

# Let's Encrypt TLS configuration.
[tls.letsencrypt]
# Email address, will be used for Let's Encrypt registration.
email = "<EMAIL>"

# Custom TLS configuration.
# [tls.custom]
# cert = "/path/to/cert.pem"
# key = "/path/to/key.pem"

[modules]
# List of enabled modules. Currently three modules are supported: "api", "telegram" and "lark".
#
# "api" — provides REST API on port 31337, recommended to enable, required if you want to use CLI.
#
# Other modules provide various messengers integrations:
#
# "telegram" — Telegram messenger.
# "lark" — Lark messenger.
#
# Messenger modules can work together, but it is recommended to use only one.
# Otherwise all notifications will be sent to all the messengers.
enabled = ["api", "telegram", "lark"]

# API configuration.
[modules.api]
# Admin user token. Generate a random one using the command: `openssl rand -hex 16`
admin = "<TOKEN>"

# Telegram configuration.
[modules.telegram]
# Admin user Telegram ID. Use @getmyid_bot to get yours.
admin = <USER_ID>
# Bot token. Use @BotFather bot to get one.
token = "<BOT_TOKEN>"

# Lark configuration.
[modules.lark]
admin = "<ADMIN_ID>"
# App ID. You can find it on the "Credentials & Basic Info" page of your app.
app_id = "<APP_ID>"
# App Secret. You can find it on the "Credentials & Basic Info" page of your app.
app_secret = "<APP_SECRET>"
# Verification token.  You can find it on the "Events & callbacks" page of your app
# under the "Encryption strategy" tab.
verification_token = "<VERIFICATION_TOKEN>"

Startup

To start the Sonar server, once you have created docker-compose.yml and config.toml, simply run:

docker compose up -d