Home/ Deploy & Use/ Docker Stack GUI (Portainer)
Phase 3 — Deploy & Use · Step 7 of 14

Docker Stack GUI — Portainer

Portainer gives you a powerful browser-based dashboard to manage containers, images, networks, volumes and the entire Swarm cluster — no command line needed.

Deploy Portainer

Run the following two commands on the MASTER node to create a persistent volume and start the Portainer container:

Run on MASTER
$ docker volume create portainer_data

$ docker run -d \
  -p 9000:9000 \
  --name=portainer \
  --restart=always \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v portainer_data:/data \
  portainer/portainer-ce

Access the Dashboard

Open a browser on any machine on the same network and go to:

http://<MASTER-IP>:9000

For example: http://192.168.0.23:9000

On first launch, create an admin username and password. Then choose "Manage the local Docker environment" to connect Portainer to the Swarm.

What You Can Do in Portainer

SectionWhat it shows
StacksDeploy and manage full application stacks from compose files
ServicesScale, update or remove individual Swarm services
ContainersLive list of all running containers on all nodes
ImagesImages cached on each node, pull or prune them
NetworksOverlay and bridge network topology
VolumesPersistent data volumes
SwarmNode list, roles, availability status
EventsReal-time Docker event stream

Remote Access via VNC

You can also use VNC Viewer to directly access the desktop of each Pi node and open Portainer in its local browser — useful for troubleshooting individual nodes.

Further Reading

  • portainer.io — official documentation
  • Portainer CE (Community Edition) — free and open source
  • Docker Desktop (Windows/Mac) — for managing Docker on development machines
💡
Development in the Docker ecosystem is moving extremely fast. Always check the latest Portainer docs for the most current installation commands.