How to Configure Traefik v3 Reverse Proxy on Ubuntu VPS with Automatic Let's Encrypt SSL

The Power of Cloud-Native Dynamic Routing

Traditional reverse proxies like Nginx require manually creating configuration files and issuing reload commands every time a new web container is deployed. Traefik v3 is a cloud-native edge router written in Go that listens directly to the Docker daemon socket, automatically provisioning routes and requesting SSL certificates whenever you launch a container with Traefik labels.

Deploying Traefik v3 via Docker Compose

mkdir -p ~/traefik && cd ~/traefik
touch acme.json && chmod 600 acme.json
nano docker-compose.yml

services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:v3.1
    container_name: traefik
    restart: always
    command:
      - "--api.dashboard=true"
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false"
      - "--entryPoints.web.address=:80"
      - "--entryPoints.websecure.address=:443"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.myresolver.acme.tlschallenge=true"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.myresolver.acme.email=admin@yourdomain.com"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.myresolver.acme.storage=/acme.json"
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./acme.json:/acme.json

docker compose up -d