Deploy Watchtower to Automatically Update Docker Containers Using Docker-Compose

Watchtower supports the following features:#

Automatically pull images and update containers.
Configure email notifications.
Schedule container update tasks.

Create a new folder

First, create a watchtower folder (name it as you like) in any location to store the docker-compose.yaml file; just place one YAML file in it!

Create a docker-compose.yaml file#

vim docker-compose.yaml

Version with email notifications#

Pay attention to the comments for email notification configuration

version: '3'  # docker-compose version can be commented 

services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower:latest
    container_name: watchtower
    environment:
      - TZ=Asia/Shanghai  # Time zone
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS=email  # Enable email notifications
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_FROM=xxxx@qq.com  # Sender's email
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_TO=xxxx@qq.com  # Recipient's email
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER=smtp.qq.com  # Email server address
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_PORT=587  # Email server port
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_USER=xxxx@qq.com  # Email
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_SERVER_PASSWORD=atzzz.com  # Email server password
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL_DELAY=30  # Email notification delay, in seconds
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock  # Access Docker daemon
    restart: unless-stopped  # Automatically restart the container
    command: --schedule "23 5 * * *" --cleanup  # Update at 3 AM daily, remove old images, and send notifications

Version without email notifications#

version: '3'  # docker-compose version can be commented 

services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower:latest
    container_name: watchtower
    environment:
      - TZ=Asia/Shanghai  # Time zone
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock  # Access Docker daemon
    restart: unless-stopped  # Automatically restart the container
    command: --schedule "23 5 * * *" --cleanup  # Update at 3 AM daily, remove old images

Start the image#

docker-compose up -d

Video tutorial on YouTube#

For more configuration files, you can check the official documentation
https://containrrr.dev/watchtower/arguments/