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🐳 Docker Guide

Pulse is distributed as a lightweight, Alpine-based Docker image.

🚀 Quick Start

docker run -d \
  --name pulse \
  -p 7655:7655 \
  -v pulse_data:/data \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  rcourtman/pulse:latest

Access at http://<your-ip>:7655.

📦 Docker Compose

Create a docker-compose.yml file:

services:
  pulse:
    image: rcourtman/pulse:latest
    container_name: pulse
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "7655:7655"
    volumes:
      - pulse_data:/data
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/London
      # Optional: Pre-configure auth (skips setup wizard)
      # - PULSE_AUTH_USER=admin
      # - PULSE_AUTH_PASS=secret123

volumes:
  pulse_data:

Run with: docker compose up -d

⚙️ Configuration

Pulse is configured via the UI (system.json) with optional environment overrides.

Variable Description Default
TZ Timezone UTC
PULSE_AUTH_USER Admin Username (unset)
PULSE_AUTH_PASS Admin Password (unset)
API_TOKENS Comma-separated API tokens (legacy) (unset)
DISCOVERY_SUBNET Custom CIDR to scan (auto)
ALLOWED_ORIGINS CORS allowed origin (* or a single origin). Empty = same-origin only. (unset)
LOG_LEVEL Log verbosity (debug, info, warn, error) info
PULSE_DISABLE_DOCKER_UPDATE_ACTIONS Hide Docker update buttons (read-only mode) false

Tip: Set LOG_LEVEL=warn to reduce log volume while still capturing important events. Note: API_TOKEN / API_TOKENS are legacy. Prefer managing API tokens in the UI after initial setup. Note: Plain text values in PULSE_AUTH_PASS are auto-hashed on startup.

Advanced: Resource Limits & Healthcheck 
services:
  pulse:
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: '0.5'
          memory: 256M
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "wget", "--spider", "-q", "http://localhost:7655/api/health"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3

🔄 Updates

To update Pulse to the latest version:

docker pull rcourtman/pulse:latest
docker stop pulse
docker rm pulse
# Re-run your docker run command

If using Compose:

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

🔄 Container Updates

Pulse can detect and apply updates to your Docker containers directly from the UI.

How It Works

  1. Update Detection: Pulse compares the local image digest with the latest digest from the container registry
  2. Visual Indicator: Containers with available updates show a blue upward arrow icon
  3. One-Click Update: Click the update button, confirm, and Pulse handles the rest
  4. Batch Updates: Use the "Update All" button in the filter bar to queue updates for multiple containers

Updating a Container

  1. Navigate to the Docker tab
  2. Look for containers with a blue update arrow (⬆️)
  3. Click the update button → Click Confirm
  4. Pulse will:
    • Pull the latest image
    • Stop the current container
    • Create a backup (renamed with _pulse_backup_ suffix)
    • Start a new container with the same configuration
    • Clean up the backup after 15 minutes (if the update succeeds)

Batch Updates

When multiple containers have updates available, an "Update All" button appears in the filter bar.

  1. Click "Update All"
  2. Click again within 3 seconds to confirm
  3. Pulse queues update commands for each container (they run on the next agent report cycle)
  4. A toast summary reports how many updates were queued or failed

Safety Features

  • Automatic Backup: The old container is renamed, not deleted, until the update succeeds
  • Rollback on Failure: If the new container fails to start, the old one is restored
  • Configuration Preserved: Networks, volumes, ports, environment variables are all preserved

Requirements

  • Unified agent running on the Docker host with Docker monitoring enabled
  • Agent must have Docker socket access (/var/run/docker.sock)
  • Registry must be accessible for update detection (public registries work automatically)

Private Registries

For private registries, ensure your Docker daemon has credentials configured:

docker login registry.example.com

The agent uses the Docker daemon's credentials for both pulling images and checking for updates.

Disabling Update Features

Pulse provides granular control over update features via environment variables on the Pulse server:

Variable Description
PULSE_DISABLE_DOCKER_UPDATE_ACTIONS Hides update buttons from the UI while still detecting updates. Use this for "read-only" monitoring.

Example - Read-Only Mode (detect updates but prevent actions):

services:
  pulse:
    image: rcourtman/pulse:latest
    environment:
      - PULSE_DISABLE_DOCKER_UPDATE_ACTIONS=true

To disable registry checks entirely, set PULSE_DISABLE_DOCKER_UPDATE_CHECKS=true on the agent.

You can also toggle "Hide Docker Update Buttons" from the UI: Settings → Agents (Docker Settings card).

🍎 macOS Docker Desktop Socket

On macOS, Docker Desktop exposes a socket at ~/.docker/run/docker.sock. Pulse auto-detects this path when --enable-docker is used with RuntimeDocker or RuntimeAuto, so no extra configuration is needed.

To override, set DOCKER_HOST:

export DOCKER_HOST=unix://$HOME/.docker/run/docker.sock

🛠️ Troubleshooting

  • Forgot Password?

    docker exec pulse rm /data/.env
docker restart pulse
# Access UI again. Pulse will require a bootstrap token for setup.
# Get it with:
docker exec pulse /app/pulse bootstrap-token

  • Logs

    docker logs -f pulse

  • Shell Access

    docker exec -it pulse /bin/sh