wud

What's Up Docker (WUD)

WUD watches your running containers and notifies you when a newer image is available. It's a passive observer by default — it won't touch your containers unless you explicitly configure an update trigger.

Run it instead of Watchtower when you want to know about updates but apply them yourself. WUD gives you a dashboard showing what's outdated and by how much, sends notifications to Discord (or wherever), and optionally can trigger updates automatically per-container if you want that level of automation.

Architecture

Docker socket (read-only) → WUD → Discord webhook
                              ↓
                         Web dashboard :3000
                         (via Traefik, LAN only)

WUD polls on a cron schedule (WUD_WATCHER_LOCAL_CRON, default hourly). When it detects a newer image tag it fires the configured triggers — in this setup, a Discord notification.

Prerequisites

• Traefik running with the traefik external network created
• Host directory and Discord webhook URL

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/SSD/Containers/wud

Create a Discord webhook: Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks → New Webhook, copy the URL.

Deployment

1. Configure environment

cp .env.example .env

Variable	Description
TZ	Timezone (default: America/New_York)
WUD_DOMAIN	FQDN Traefik routes to WUD (e.g. wud.virtuallyboring.com)
WUD_PORT	Host port for direct access (default: 3015)
WUD_DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL	Discord webhook URL for notifications

2. Start

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f wud

3. Access

• Via Traefik: https://<WUD_DOMAIN> (LAN only)
• Direct: http://<host-ip>:3015

Controlling What Gets Watched

By default WUD watches every container. Opt individual containers out with a label:

labels:
  - "wud.watch=false"

Or pin a container to only notify on specific tags using a regex:

labels:
  - "wud.tag.include=^\\d+\\.\\d+\\.\\d+$"   # semver only, ignore latest/edge/etc

Auto-Update Triggers (Optional)

WUD is configured read-only by default — it notifies but does not act. To enable auto-updates for specific containers, two changes are needed:

1. Remove :ro from the Docker socket mount in compose.yaml
2. Add the trigger env var and a label on the containers you want auto-updated:

# In wud/compose.yaml environment:
- WUD_TRIGGER_DOCKER_LOCAL_PRUNE=true

# On the container you want auto-updated:
labels:
  - "wud.trigger=docker"

Use this carefully — auto-updating production-ish services like Traefik or databases without testing first can cause outages.

Portainer Integration

WUD has no native Portainer trigger, but Portainer exposes a stack webhook that redeploys a stack when POSTed to. WUD's HTTP trigger can POST to that URL the moment it detects an update — giving you automated redeploys driven by Portainer rather than raw Docker API calls.

This is the safer auto-update path: Portainer handles the pull and redeploy using the same mechanism as clicking "Redeploy" in the UI, with the full stack context (env vars, volumes, networks) already configured there.

1. Enable the webhook in Portainer

In Portainer, open the stack you want to auto-update and go to Stack → Edit → Stack webhook. Enable it and copy the webhook URL — it looks like:

https://portainer.virtuallyboring.com/api/stacks/webhooks/<uuid>

Repeat for each stack you want WUD to trigger.

2. Add the HTTP trigger to WUD

Add one env var per stack to compose.yaml (or .env). The trigger name is arbitrary — use something that matches the stack:

# In wud/compose.yaml environment:
- WUD_TRIGGER_HTTP_ARRSTACK_URL=${WUD_PORTAINER_WEBHOOK_ARRSTACK}
- WUD_TRIGGER_HTTP_NEXTCLOUD_URL=${WUD_PORTAINER_WEBHOOK_NEXTCLOUD}

And the corresponding .env entries:

WUD_PORTAINER_WEBHOOK_ARRSTACK=https://portainer.virtuallyboring.com/api/stacks/webhooks/<uuid>
WUD_PORTAINER_WEBHOOK_NEXTCLOUD=https://portainer.virtuallyboring.com/api/stacks/webhooks/<uuid>

3. Label the containers to wire them up

On each container in a Portainer-managed stack, add a label telling WUD which trigger to fire when that container has an update. Use wud.trigger with a comma-separated list if you want both a Discord notification and a Portainer redeploy:

labels:
  - "wud.trigger=discord,http.arrstack"    # notify Discord AND trigger Portainer redeploy
  # or just:
  - "wud.trigger=http.arrstack"            # Portainer redeploy only, no Discord message

Notes

• The Portainer webhook redeploys the entire stack, not just the one updated container — all services in the stack get restarted
• Don't use this for stacks containing databases unless you're comfortable with the restart window
• The Docker socket :ro mount is fine — WUD never touches Docker directly with this approach, Portainer does

Updating

WUD uses a floating latest tag by default. To update:

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d