Pocket ID demo

Gives every visitor their own temporary Pocket ID instance, filled with seed data. Visitors go through the normal setup to create their admin account, and the instance is deleted when the session ends.

Getting started

docker compose up -d --build

Open http://localhost:8080 and click "Start the demo". Each demo runs on its own subdomain like 3f9a1c2e.localhost, which browsers resolve without any DNS setup.

In production, set BASE_URL and point DNS for both your host and *.your-host at the demo.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
BASE_URL	http://localhost:8080	Public URL of the demo
PORT	8080	Port to listen on
POCKET_ID_IMAGE	ghcr.io/pocket-id/pocket-id:next-v3	Pocket ID image used for the demos
DOCKER_NETWORK	pocket-id-demo	Docker network shared by the demo and its instances
SESSION_DURATION	1h	How long a demo lives
MAX_SESSIONS	30	Maximum number of demos running at the same time
RATE_LIMIT_DEMOS	5	Demos an IP can start in a row, 0 turns it off
RATE_LIMIT_INTERVAL	15m	How long an IP then waits for each further demo
TRUST_PROXY	false	Set to true behind a reverse proxy

How it works

• On startup and once a day, the demo seeds one Pocket ID instance and keeps a copy of its data as a template.
• Every new demo starts a container from that template, so it's ready in about two seconds.
• Demos run on an internal network without internet access and with memory, CPU and disk limits, because visitors are admins inside them.
• Restarting or updating the demo keeps running demos, so docker compose down leaves them and their network in place. To remove them, run docker rm -f $(docker ps -aq --filter label=pocket-id-demo.session).
• The demo answers Pocket ID's setup endpoints itself until the visitor has signed up, because the seeded users would otherwise close the setup.