I really enjoy using discourse on different forums I joined! Learning it is open source, I want to make a private family server with discourse, but I am running into a few issues. It seems while using docker discourse has its own management script that needs to be run as root. How would I go about adding it behind a reverse proxy container that doesn’t connect to the internet (only accessed through vpn)? Is there a way to disable email verification for such a use case? I am aware that this isn’t the target use case for discourse. Has anyone tried setting it up for a private company/family purpose ?

Not a direct answer, but note you can deploy to the open web and make your Discourse 100% private and invite only.

I have the discourse installation in a KVM VM with docker, with proxmox VE for virtualization. Access from Internet uses haproxy for ssl termination, that allows to expose only one IP address, even for different services on the Internal network.

Private Self Hosting Question

Product Support Self-hosting

jakedn May 1, 2025, 8:52am 3

I didn’t know that was an option.
Even so I have the vpn setup and other services already up.
I like segregating from the web on the network level when I have the option.

Topic		Replies	Views
How to setup discourse on my own home server Self-hosting hosting	6	2599	October 5, 2022
Proxying new setup with reverse proxy Self-hosting	1	125	June 30, 2026
Tips for setting up a small private Discourse behind a firewall? Self-hosting	6	500	June 12, 2024
Using Discourse in private VPN: What about email? Self-hosting	8	1183	December 19, 2019
Local installation internal use only Self-hosting	11	1280	March 9, 2024

Private Self Hosting Question

Related topics