BanGUI/Docs/Deployment.md

Deployment Guide

Graceful Shutdown

BanGUI implements graceful shutdown to ensure in-flight operations complete before the process exits. This prevents:

• Incomplete blocklist imports leaving stale data
• Interrupted ban requests
• Corrupted background job states
• Unclean database connection closures

How It Works

1. SIGTERM received — Docker sends SIGTERM when docker stop is called
2. Uvicorn catches SIGTERM — Notifies the FastAPI lifespan handler
3. Lifespan shutdown begins — Scheduler stops accepting new jobs
4. In-flight tasks drain — Up to 25 seconds for running jobs to complete
5. Resources cleaned up — HTTP session, external logging, scheduler lock, DB connection

Docker Configuration

backend:
  stop_grace_period: 30s  # Give lifespan 30s to complete before SIGKILL

The stop_grace_period of 30s gives the Python code a 25s graceful timeout, leaving a 5s safety margin before Docker sends SIGKILL.

Shutdown Sequence

Step	Action	Timeout
1	Scheduler stops accepting new jobs	Immediate
2	Wait for pending background tasks	25s max
3	Close HTTP session	Immediate
4	Flush external logging handler	Immediate
5	Release scheduler lock	Immediate
6	Close database connection	Immediate

Background Tasks That Drain

• Blocklist imports
• Geo IP cache resolutions
• History sync operations
• Geo cache cleanup
• Geo cache flush
• Session cleanup
• Rate limiter cleanup
• Scheduler lock heartbeat

Monitoring Shutdown

Logs during shutdown:

bangui_shutting_down timeout_seconds=25.0
scheduler_stopped_accepting_jobs
waiting_for_pending_tasks count=3 timeout_seconds=25.0
pending_tasks_completed
http_session_closed
external_logging_shutdown_complete
scheduler_lock_released
bangui_shut_down

If tasks exceed the timeout:

pending_tasks_timeout cancelled_count=3

Rolling Deployments

During rolling deployments:

1. Old instance releases scheduler lock immediately on shutdown
2. New instance acquires lock without waiting for TTL expiry
3. Zero downtime for background job execution

---

Health Checks

The backend container includes a health check endpoint at GET /api/v1/health that reports application and component status:

• HTTP 200 with {"status": "ok", ...} — all components healthy
• HTTP 200 with {"status": "degraded", ...} — some components unhealthy (e.g., database error) but fail2ban reachable
• HTTP 503 with {"status": "unavailable", ...} — fail2ban is unreachable (backend will restart)

Component checks performed:

Component	Check	Notes
fail2ban	Socket ping via cached status	Returns 503 when offline
database	Opens and closes a test connection	Returns degraded when failing
scheduler	scheduler.running attribute	Returns degraded when stopped
cache	Session cache presence	Returns degraded when not initialised

Docker Health Check:

The Dockerfile includes a HEALTHCHECK that queries the endpoint. Docker interprets HTTP 503 as unhealthy and restarts the container after 3 consecutive failures (90 seconds by default).

Why 503 for offline fail2ban?

If fail2ban goes offline but the backend always returns 200, Docker treats the container as healthy. This masks infrastructure failures. By returning 503 when fail2ban is unreachable, orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes, Docker Swarm) automatically restart the backend container until fail2ban recovers.

Docker Compose health check parameters:

Parameter	Value	Rationale
interval	30s	Balance between responsiveness and load
timeout	10s	Allows for slow probe on busy system
retries	3	~90 seconds before restart (3 × 30s)
start_period	40s	Allows app and fail2ban to fully start

---

CORS Configuration

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) must be explicitly configured when the frontend and backend are served from different origins.

Development

By default, the backend allows requests from common localhost development origins:

• http://localhost:5173
• http://127.0.0.1:5173
• https://localhost:5173
• https://127.0.0.1:5173

No additional configuration is needed for local development — just run the frontend and backend normally.

Production

In production, override the default with your actual frontend origin(s):

Docker Compose:

environment:
  BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS: "https://example.com,https://www.example.com"

Environment File (.env):

BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://example.com,https://www.example.com

Multiple Origins: Separate multiple allowed origins with commas (no spaces):

BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://example.com,https://app.example.com,https://admin.example.com

Disable CORS: To disable CORS entirely (e.g., when the frontend is served from the same origin as the backend):

BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=

Security Considerations

• Always specify exact origins — never use wildcard * in production, especially with allow_credentials=true (credentials mode is required for the session cookie).
• Use HTTPS in production — the backend enforces the Secure cookie flag, which requires HTTPS (or localhost for development).
• Validate in reverse proxy — if using Nginx or a CDN reverse proxy, validate the Origin header before forwarding requests to ensure only legitimate origins reach the backend.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Solution
Access-Control-Allow-Origin header missing from response	CORS not configured or origin not whitelisted	Check BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS and ensure your frontend origin is included
Browser blocks requests with CORS error	Credentials mode enabled but origin not exactly whitelisted	Ensure BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS includes the exact origin (protocol + domain + port) of your frontend
Works in development but fails in production	Default localhost origins used instead of production frontend domain	Override BANGUI_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS in production environment

---

In multi-instance deployments (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker Swarm), the scheduler lock prevents duplicate execution of background tasks by ensuring only one instance runs the scheduler at a time.

How It Works

The lock is stored in the SQLite database and enforced via:

1. Lock Acquisition — At startup, each instance tries to insert a lock record. Only one succeeds; others reject startup with a clear error message.
2. Heartbeat — The lock-holding instance sends a heartbeat every 5 seconds to prove it's still alive.
3. Stale Lock Cleanup — On startup, any lock older than 60 seconds (without a heartbeat) is automatically deleted, allowing recovery from instance crashes.

Configuration

Parameter	Value	Rationale
Heartbeat Interval	5 seconds	Allows ~12 missed heartbeats before lock expires
Lock TTL	60 seconds	Time before a lock without heartbeat is considered abandoned
Min Safe Ratio	12x (TTL / interval)	Robust protection against temporary delays or high load

With a 60-second TTL and 5-second heartbeat interval, the lock survives even if the instance becomes unresponsive for up to ~55 seconds. This provides strong protection against false positives while still detecting genuine crashes.

Monitoring

Check logs for these key events:

• scheduler_lock_acquired — Lock successfully acquired at startup (INFO)
• scheduler_lock_heartbeat_updated — Heartbeat successfully updated (DEBUG)
• scheduler_lock_heartbeat_failed — Heartbeat update failed; lock may be lost (WARNING)
• scheduler_lock_heartbeat_timeout — Heartbeat exceeded 5-second timeout (ERROR)
• scheduler_lock_held_by_other_instance — Another instance holds the lock (WARNING at startup)

Troubleshooting: "Blocklist import runs twice"

Symptom: Blocklist import task executes simultaneously in two instances, causing duplicate entries or data corruption.

Cause: The scheduler lock was released prematurely (e.g., instance crash, database timeout) while a task was still running.

Solution:

1. Check heartbeat timing — Ensure the instance isn't hanging for >60 seconds (monitor CPU/memory/disk).
2. Verify database health — Run SELECT * FROM scheduler_lock; to see if a stale lock exists. If present, delete it: DELETE FROM scheduler_lock;
3. Review logs — Look for scheduler_lock_heartbeat_failed or scheduler_lock_heartbeat_timeout errors in the time window when duplication occurred.
4. Increase resource limits — If the backend is memory/CPU constrained, increase limits in docker-compose.yml to prevent slowdowns that trigger false lock timeouts.
5. Check database performance — Slow database queries can delay heartbeat updates. Run PRAGMA integrity_check; to check for corruption.

If duplication occurs frequently, consider migrating to Redis-backed locking (see Advanced section below) for higher reliability.

Troubleshooting: "Scheduler stops completely"

Symptom: Background tasks (blocklist import, geo cache cleanup, history sync, session cleanup) stop running. No errors in logs but tasks don't execute.

Cause: Instance holding the scheduler lock crashed without releasing it, or heartbeat is failing silently.

Diagnosis:

1. Check if lock exists: SELECT * FROM scheduler_lock;
2. If lock exists with a PID that no longer runs, it's orphaned
3. Check logs for scheduler_lock_heartbeat_lost warnings

Solution:

1. Clear the orphaned lock: DELETE FROM scheduler_lock;
2. Restart the instance that should hold the lock
3. Verify lock acquisition: grep "scheduler_lock_acquired" logs
4. If heartbeat keeps failing, check database latency (SQLite heartbeats should be <100ms)

Prevention:

• Monitor scheduler_lock_heartbeat_lost events — more than 3 in an hour indicates a problem
• Ensure database I/O is not bottlenecked (SSD recommended for SQLite)
• Consider reducing heartbeat interval if network latency causes false timeouts

Advanced: Migrating to Redis

For very high-traffic deployments with strict data consistency requirements, you can replace the SQLite-backed lock with Redis:

• Why: Redis is single-threaded and atomic by design; clock skew and timeout issues are eliminated.
• How: Install redlock-py or aioredis, replace scheduler_lock.py with a Redis implementation, update heartbeat interval to 2-3 seconds.
• Trade-off: Adds a Redis dependency but eliminates database lock contention and provides microsecond-precision atomicity.

This is not required for typical deployments but is recommended if you see frequent scheduler conflicts in logs.

---

All containers have hard limits (max usage) and soft reservations (guaranteed allocation). This ensures:

• Isolation: A misbehaving container cannot crash others or the host
• Predictability: Reservations guarantee minimum resources even under load
• Efficiency: Unused reserved capacity can be borrowed by other containers

Container Resource Limits

Container	Limit CPU	Limit Memory	Reserved CPU	Reserved Memory	Purpose
fail2ban	0.5	128M	0.1	64M	Monitors logs, bans IPs—typically idle
backend	2.0	512M	1.0	256M	Core app: database, fail2ban API, config management
frontend	0.5	128M	0.25	64M	Nginx: serves SPA + API proxy

Rationale

• fail2ban: Lightweight log monitoring. Occasionally CPU spikes during ban processing but memory usage is minimal.
• backend: Heavy lifting—Python runtime, SQLite database, background jobs. May need extra memory for large blocklists. Reservation of 1.0 CPU ensures responsive API even when frontend is busy.
• frontend: Nginx is efficient. Limit of 0.5 CPU and 128M memory is more than sufficient for reverse proxy duties.

---

Memory Considerations

Backend Memory Requirements

The backend typically runs in 256–512M under normal load. Memory usage depends on:

• Blocklist size: Large blocklists (>1M entries) require more heap space
• Cache warmth: First query after startup may require more memory as caches fill
• Concurrent connections: Each active user session uses a small amount of memory

Tuning: If you see OOM kills in logs, increase backend limits and reservations (e.g., 1024M limit). Test under realistic load before finalizing.

Frontend Memory Usage

Nginx is typically <50M. If you see memory pressure on frontend, check for:

• Misconfigured cache headers on static assets
• Large log volumes (nginx access logs)

---

Docker Swarm & Kubernetes

For production deployments using orchestration platforms:

Docker Swarm

The deploy sections in docker-compose.yml are compatible with docker stack deploy:

docker stack deploy -c Docker/docker-compose.yml bangui

Swarm respects the same limits and reservations fields.

Kubernetes

For Kubernetes, translate resource constraints to equivalent resources fields in your deployment manifests:

containers:
  - name: backend
    image: git.lpl-mind.de/lukas.pupkalipinski/bangui/backend:latest
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu: "2"
        memory: "512Mi"
      requests:
        cpu: "1"
        memory: "256Mi"

Kubernetes equivalent mappings:

• Docker deploy.limits → Kubernetes resources.limits
• Docker deploy.reservations → Kubernetes resources.requests

---

Monitoring Resource Usage

Docker Compose (Development)

docker stats

Shows real-time CPU and memory usage for all running containers.

Production (Docker Swarm / Kubernetes)

Use native monitoring:

• Docker Swarm: Prometheus + Grafana
• Kubernetes: Metrics Server + dashboard or Prometheus

---

Configuration

All runtime settings are documented in CONFIGURATION.md, including database, session, fail2ban, HTTP client, geolocation, CORS, logging, rate limiting, and observability options.

---

Environment Variables

Resource limits are configured in Docker/docker-compose.yml and cannot be overridden via environment variables. To adjust limits:

1. Edit Docker/docker-compose.yml
2. Modify the deploy.limits and deploy.reservations sections
3. Restart containers: make down && make up

---

Troubleshooting

Issue	Symptom	Solution
Backend OOM kills	"Exit code 137" in logs	Increase backend memory limit
Throttling	CPU at 100%, requests slow	Increase CPU limit or optimize code
Service startup timeout	Containers not becoming "healthy"	Increase reservation to guarantee capacity at startup
Host unresponsive	System-wide lag	Reduce container limits to prevent host starvation

---

Disaster Recovery

Database Migration Failures

If a migration fails mid-transaction, the application refuses to start. This is intentional — it prevents inconsistent schema states.

Diagnosis:

1. Check current schema version:

   sqlite3 /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db "SELECT MAX(version) FROM schema_migrations;"
   

2. Check which tables exist:

   sqlite3 /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db "SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table';"
   

3. Check application logs for the specific error.

Recovery Options:

• Automatic rollback: Next startup re-applies the same migration from scratch
• Manual completion: Apply the migration manually, then insert the version record:

  sqlite3 /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db "BEGIN IMMEDIATE;"
  -- Run your SQL here
  sqlite3 /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db "INSERT INTO schema_migrations (version) VALUES (?);"
  sqlite3 /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db "COMMIT;"
  

• Full reset (development only): rm bangui.db bangui.db-wal bangui.db-shm

Prevention:

• Never modify bangui.db manually during running instance
• Always backup before major migrations
• Monitor startup logs for migrating_database_schema events

Orphaned WAL Files

After crashes, SQLite WAL mode may leave orphaned .wal files. The database auto-recovers on next open. If you see WAL-related errors:

# Check for orphaned WAL files
ls -la /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db*

# Force checkpoint to merge WAL into main database
sqlite3 /var/lib/bangui/bangui.db "PRAGMA wal_checkpoint(FULL);"

See Docs/DATABASE_MIGRATIONS.md for full recovery procedures.

---

Next Steps

• Development: Run make up to start with default limits
• Staging: Test with realistic data volumes and monitor resource usage
• Production: Adjust limits based on observed usage patterns, then commit changes

---

Security Best Practices

Secrets Management

Never hard-code secrets. All secrets must be injected at runtime via environment variables.

Secret	Purpose	Generation
BANGUI_SESSION_SECRET	Signs session cookies	python -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))'
fail2ban credentials	jail config access	From fail2ban configuration

• Store secrets in a secrets manager (e.g., Docker secrets, Kubernetes Secrets, HashiCorp Vault)
• Rotate BANGUI_SESSION_SECRET periodically — sessions become invalid, users must re-login
• Never log or expose session secrets

Container Security Hardening

Non-root user: Backend runs as bangui:bangui (UID 1000). Frontend runs as nginx default. This limits container breakout damage.

Filesystem permissions:

# Data directory (SQLite DB) — only bangui user rw
chmod 700 /data
chown 1000:1000 /data

# Config directory — read-only for backend (it reads fail2ban config)
# Write access only for config management operations via BanGUI
chmod 755 /config

Capabilities: fail2ban container requires NET_ADMIN and NET_RAW for raw socket manipulation and iptables interaction. No additional capabilities needed for app containers.

No privileged mode: BanGUI containers must not run --privileged. The fail2ban container needs only specific capabilities, not full host access.

Network Security

• Internal network only: All BanGUI containers communicate on bangui-net. Only the frontend port (default 8080) is exposed to the host.
• fail2ban socket: Mounted read-only (ro) from host — backend reads status only
• fail2ban config: Mounted read-write — BanGUI modifies jail configurations as requested
• Drop traffic between containers: Use Docker network isolation to prevent lateral movement:

  networks:
    bangui-net:
      driver: bridge
      internal: false  # Allow external only for frontend
  

TLS / HTTPS

BanGUI does not terminate TLS. Handle TLS at the reverse proxy or load balancer level:

Nginx (existing frontend container):

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name bangui.example.com;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/certs/bangui.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/bangui.key;
    ssl_protocols       TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers         ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256;

    # Proxy to existing frontend container
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://bangui-frontend:80;
        ...
    }
}

Security headers (already in nginx.conf):

• CSP, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy
• Uncomment HSTS header when HTTPS is fully configured

HTTP to HTTPS redirect: Add in your TLS terminator:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name bangui.example.com;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

Dependency Scanning

Scan base images for vulnerabilities regularly:

# Trivy (Docker/Podman compatible)
trivy image python:3.12-slim
trivy image nginx:1.27-alpine
trivy image node:22-alpine

# CI integration
trivy image --exit-code 1 --severity HIGH,CRITICAL git.lpl-mind.de/lukas.pupkalipinski/bangui/backend:latest

Update base images quarterly or when CVEs are published.

Rate Limiting at Deployment Level

The application-level rate limiter (BANGUI_RATE_LIMIT_* env vars) handles API requests. Add deployment-level protection:

Nginx (existing reverse proxy):

# Limit concurrent connections per IP
limit_conn_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=conn_limit:10m;
server {
    limit_conn conn_limit 100;
}

Fail2ban (already running):

• BanGUI manages fail2ban jails
• Additional deployment-level rate limits should target infrastructure endpoints (SSH, management UIs), not BanGUI itself

Audit Logging

All authentication events are logged via structlog:

Event	Log Key	Severity
Login success	auth_login_success	INFO
Login failure	auth_login_failure	WARNING
Session created	session_created	INFO
Session destroyed	session_destroyed	INFO
Session expired	session_expired	INFO

Forward these logs to a SIEM or log aggregator for security monitoring. See Structured Logging below.

---

Performance Tuning

SQLite Performance

SQLite is single-writer. Under write-heavy load (blocklist imports, history writes), writes may queue.

WAL mode (default, do not disable):

PRAGMA journal_mode=WAL;  -- Already enabled by default

Synchronous mode for production:

PRAGMA synchronous=NORMAL;  -- Balanced (not FULL, not OFF)

This survives process crashes without corruption while maintaining good write performance.

Cache size (increase for production):

# In-memory cache: 64MB (adjust based on available RAM)
PRAGMA cache_size=-65536;  -- negative = KB

temp_store for large sorts:

PRAGMA temp_store=MEMORY;

Read performance:

• Most reads are point queries by IP or jail name — indexes handle this efficiently
• Large history scans (dashboard) — paginate, use LIMIT/OFFSET
• Avoid SELECT * on large tables — always specify needed columns

Gzip Compression

Already enabled in nginx.conf. Verify effective compression:

curl -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip" -I http://localhost:8080/api/v1/dashboard/status
# Should show: Content-Encoding: gzip

Backend Performance

Startup warm-up: On first request after start, caches are cold. First blocklist query may be slower. This is normal — subsequent requests hit cache.

Memory tuning:

# docker-compose.yml — increase if OOM
backend:
  deploy:
    limits:
      memory: 1024M  # Up from 512M for large blocklists

Single worker enforced: The session cache is process-local. Multiple workers would cause random logouts. This is intentional — scale horizontally via orchestration, not vertically via workers.

Single-Worker Requirement

BanGUI enforces single-worker mode at startup. It fails immediately with a clear error if more than one worker is configured.

Why this matters:

• In-memory session cache — each worker has its own cache copy. A session cached in worker A is invisible to worker B. A user validated by A may be rejected by B.
• Rate-limit windows — per-IP counters are process-local. With 4 workers, a client hitting different workers gets 4× the intended rate limit.
• Runtime state — fail2ban status, pending recovery records, and jail service capability flags are all per-process. Dashboard queries to different workers return inconsistent data.
• Background scheduler — the database lock ensures only one instance runs scheduled jobs, but each worker's scheduler still fires. With multi-worker, the same job runs N times.

Detection:

The check runs at application startup in create_app():

• WEB_CONCURRENCY env var — set by gunicorn, and by uvicorn in recent versions when --workers N is passed
• BANGUI_WORKERS env var — explicit override (discouraged)

If either is set to a value > 1, RuntimeError is raised with instructions and a reference to this document.

Test mode:

The check is automatically skipped when TESTING=1 is set. This allows the test suite to run with an arbitrary number of workers.

What to do instead of multi-worker:

Scale horizontally via container orchestration — run multiple containers behind a load balancer. Each container runs a single worker. The database lock ensures only one container runs background jobs at a time.

Frontend Performance

Static asset caching (already configured):

location /assets/ {
    expires 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
}

Bundle size: Production build uses esbuild minification. Monitor with:

du -sh frontend/dist/
ls -lh frontend/dist/assets/*.js

Database Maintenance

Periodic checkpoint (production, monthly or after large blocklist imports):

sqlite3 /data/bangui.db "PRAGMA wal_checkpoint(FULL);"

Analyze for query planner (after bulk inserts/deletes):

sqlite3 /data/bangui.db "ANALYZE;"

---

Monitoring Setup

Health Check Endpoint

GET /api/v1/health — primary monitoring target.

Status	HTTP Code	Meaning
ok	200	All components healthy
degraded	200	Some components unhealthy — investigate
unavailable	503	fail2ban unreachable — container will be restarted

Structured Logging

All logs are structured (JSON via structlog). Key fields:

Log field	Description
event	Event name (e.g., auth_login_success)
request_id	Per-request correlation ID
user_id	Session user (if authenticated)
duration_ms	Request duration
component	Component name (e.g., scheduler, database)

Log levels:

Level	Use
DEBUG	Detailed debugging (query SQL, cache hits)
INFO	Operational events (startup, shutdown, login, ban action)
WARNING	Recoverable issues (cache miss, lock contention)
ERROR	Failures requiring attention (DB error, fail2ban offline)

Configure via env:

BANGUI_LOG_LEVEL=info   # debug, info, warning, error

Log Aggregation

Docker Compose — forward container logs to aggregator:

services:
  backend:
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-size: "10m"
        max-file: "3"

External aggregators:

# Fluentd example
services:
  backend:
    logging:
      driver: fluentd
      options:
        fluentd-address localhost:24224
        tag bangui-backend

ELK Stack — send JSON logs directly to Logstash or via Filebeat.

Metrics to Monitor

Metric	Source	Alert Threshold
Health check failures	/api/v1/health	3 consecutive → container restart
Backend memory	docker stats	>450M (of 512M limit)
Backend CPU	docker stats	>80% sustained
Disk usage (/data)	df -h	>80%
fail2ban container restarts	docker ps	>2/hour
Backend container restarts	docker ps	>2/hour
Database file size	ls -lh /data/bangui.db	Grows >10MB/day indicates issue
Session count	/api/v1/sessions	Sudden drop indicates cache issue
Blocklist import duration	Logs (blocklist_import_completed)	>5 minutes may indicate performance issue

Uptime Monitoring

External checks:

• Monitor https://your-domain.com/api/v1/health from multiple geographic locations
• Use services: Better Uptime, UptimeRobot, Pingdom
• Alert on: HTTP 503, HTTP 200 + degraded status, connection timeout

Alerting

Critical (PagerDuty / immediate):

• Health check HTTP 503 for >30 seconds
• Backend OOM kill (exit code 137)
• fail2ban offline for >5 minutes

Warning (Slack / email):

• Health check returns degraded
• Disk usage >80%
• Memory usage >450M
• Backend restarts >2/hour

---

Scaling Guidelines

Horizontal Scaling

BanGUI is designed for horizontal scaling via container orchestration (not multiple workers):

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              Load Balancer                      │
│         (nginx, HAProxy, Traefik)               │
└──────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘
                   │
      ┌─────────────┼─────────────┐
      ▼            ▼            ▼
┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐
│ Backend  │ │ Backend  │ │ Backend  │
│ (inst 1) │ │ (inst 2) │ │ (inst 3) │
└────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘
     │            │            │
     └────────────┼────────────┘
                  ▼
         ┌───────────────┐
         │  Scheduler    │
         │  Lock (DB)    │ ← Only one instance runs jobs
         └───────────────┘
                  │
                  ▼
         ┌───────────────┐
         │    SQLite    │
         │  (shared fs) │
         └───────────────┘

How it works:

• Scheduler lock ensures only one instance runs background jobs
• Session cache is per-instance — use sticky sessions at load balancer, OR configure BANGUI_SESSION_CACHE=redis for shared sessions
• SQLite on shared storage — use network file system (NFS, GlusterFS) or block storage (AWS EBS)

Stateless Design

For true stateless scaling without sticky sessions, migrate session cache to Redis:

# docker-compose.yml
backend:
  environment:
    - BANGUI_SESSION_CACHE=redis
    - BANGUI_REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379/0
  depends_on:
    redis:
      condition: service_healthy

  redis:
    image: docker.io/library/redis:7-alpine
    deploy:
      limits:
        cpus: '0.5'
        memory: 256M

Benefits:

• Sessions shared across all instances → no sticky sessions needed
• Load balancer can distribute freely
• Scales linearly

Trade-offs:

• Redis is another dependency to monitor
• Redis persistence required for session survival across Redis restarts
• Redis failure causes mass logouts

Database Scaling

SQLite does not support read replicas. Scaling reads is limited.

Read scaling (if needed):

• Cache aggressively — BanGUI caches blocklist data in-memory
• Add read-only views for dashboard queries
• Consider periodic snapshot exports to separate read-optimized store

Write scaling:

• Single writer only — SQLite WAL helps but doesn't parallelize writes
• If write throughput becomes a bottleneck, consider:
  • Periodic batching (already used for blocklist imports)
  • Sharding by jail (separate DB per jail) — architectural change
  • Migration to PostgreSQL — significant effort

CDN for Static Assets

For large-scale deployments, serve /assets/ from a CDN:

# Replace /assets/ proxy with CDN origin
location /assets/ {
    proxy_pass https://your-cdn.cloudfront.net/assets/;
    proxy_cache_valid 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
}

Benefits:

• Reduces frontend container load
• Assets served from edge locations close to users
• Reduces bandwidth costs

Autoscaling

Docker Swarm: Use the labels + update_config pattern for rolling updates. Autoscaling requires external metrics (Prometheus + VPA or similar).

Kubernetes: HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) based on CPU/memory:

apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: bangui-backend
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: bangui-backend
  minReplicas: 2
  maxReplicas: 10
  metrics:
  - type: Resource
    resource:
      name: cpu
      target:
        type: Utilization
        averageUtilization: 70
  - type: Resource
    resource:
      name: memory
      target:
        type: Utilization
        averageUtilization: 80

Load Balancer Configuration

Health check:

# HAProxy example
backend-check:
    option httpchk GET /api/v1/health
    http-check expect status 200

Sticky sessions (if NOT using Redis):

# HAProxy
appsession _SESSION_ID len 64 timeout 24h

Connection limits:

# Per-backend limit to prevent overload
server backend1 backend:8000 maxconn 50

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Next Steps