How can I manually set up a Google Tag Manager (GTM) server-side on Digital Ocean?

Heya,

Setting up Google Tag Manager’s (GTM) server-side tagging manually on your own server can be quite complex, and it’s important to ensure all steps are correctly followed. Based on your description, you’ve made significant progress by installing Docker, pulling the Google image, and attempting to run it. Let’s go through some common troubleshooting steps that might help you resolve the issue of not receiving a 200 response from http://localhost:8080/healthz.

1. Verify the Docker Container is Running

First, ensure that the Docker container with the GTM server-side image is running:

docker ps

This command lists all active containers. Check if the GTM container is listed and is not exiting/restarting.

2. Check Docker Container Logs

Inspect the logs of your Docker container to see if there are any error messages or logs that might indicate what’s going wrong:

docker logs [container_id]

Replace [container_id] with the ID of your GTM container.

3. Correct Configuration String

Make sure the CONTAINER_CONFIG environment variable is set correctly in your docker run command. It should be the exact configuration string you got from GTM server. The string should be enclosed in single quotes without extra spaces:

docker run -p 8080:8080 -e CONTAINER_CONFIG='your_config_string' -e RUN_AS_PREVIEW_SERVER=true gcr.io/cloud-tagging-10302018/gtm-cloud-image:stable

4. Network Configuration

If you’re running this on a server and testing it from a different machine, localhost will refer to the local machine, not your server. In this case, use the server’s IP address or domain name instead of localhost. If you’re running this directly on the server, localhost should be fine.

5. Firewall or Network Issues

Ensure that your server’s firewall settings allow traffic on port 8080. If you’re running a cloud server, also check the network security group or equivalent to ensure the port is open.

6. Docker Port Mapping

The -p 8080:8080 argument in the docker run command maps the container’s port 8080 to your host’s port 8080. Verify that this port mapping is correct and that no other service is using port 8080 on your host machine.

7. HTTP vs. HTTPS

Ensure you are using the correct protocol. If your server is set up to redirect HTTP to HTTPS or only accept HTTPS connections, trying to access http://localhost:8080/healthz might fail. Try using https://localhost:8080/healthz in that case (although for localhost, this is less likely to be the issue).

8. Docker Image Updates

Check if there are any updates to the Docker image provided by Google. Sometimes, pulling the latest image can resolve issues:

docker pull gcr.io/cloud-tagging-10302018/gtm-cloud-image:stable

Then, rerun your container with the updated image.

Conclusion

If after these steps, you’re still facing issues, the container logs are usually the best place to look for more specific errors. Since this is a relatively specialized setup, the community around GTM server-side tagging might be limited