Release Notes: v2026.5.2 (Docker Deployment & Persistent Storage)

We are proud to release v2026.5.2 of the Switch Dashboard, introducing native Docker & Docker Compose containerization and standardizing persistent data structures for bulletproof, containerized deployments.

🐳 Dockerization & Portability
Official Dockerfile: A lightweight containerized setup built on top of python:3.11-slim that isolates the entire Python environment, reducing host package management overhead.
Unified docker-compose.yml: Simplifies multi-container network configuration. Out-of-the-box support for custom port remappings (e.g., host 8081 to container 8080) to seamlessly coexist with other services on the host.
💾 Unified Persistent Data Mapping
Environment Configuration: Introduced the DASHBOARD_DATA_DIR environment variable to configure the storage directory (defaults to /data inside the container).
Consolidated State Storage: All configuration, telemetry, history, and backup files are saved in the same directory:
config.json (switches)
settings.json (user interface preferences)
notes.json (custom port descriptions)
counters.json (cumulative interface data)
history_hourly.json & history_daily.json (rolling bandwidth metrics)
/backup/ (on-demand binary switch configuration backups)
Host Volume Persistence: Mount a single host folder (e.g. -v ./data:/data) to retain all metrics and user preferences permanently across container restarts, builds, or migrations.
🛡️ Auto-Initialization Safeguard
Empty Directory Detections: When mounting empty folders or fresh volumes, the dashboard automatically detects the absence of configurations and copies the bundled default config.json configuration file.
Resiliency: This prevents container crash loops due to missing files and ensures the user can immediately access the settings page /config to configure their switches via the Web UI.
📦 Robust Absolute Resource Pathing
Absolute Asset Resolution: Refactored Flask's initialization inside app.py to bind both template_folder and static_folder to absolute file pathways resolved dynamically at startup.
Render Guarantee: Eliminates any relative directory mismatch bugs or rendering errors (TemplateNotFound) regardless of the working directory or container runtime layer.
🔬 Service Integration & Compatibility
Standard Deployments Unaffected: The path resolution falls back cleanly to the local directory when DASHBOARD_DATA_DIR is not set, meaning existing virtual env or systemd LXC deployments (like the one running on IP 192.168.1.32) continue to run smoothly with zero adjustments.