Watchtower Docker on UGREEN NAS — UGOS Setup Guide

Why Run Watchtower on UGREEN NASync?

UGREEN's NASync line is a newer entrant in the homelab NAS space, and its DXP-series models run Docker under UGOS for the same self-hosted apps you'd run on any Linux Docker host — Immich, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Home Assistant. Without watchtower docker ugreen configured, keeping those images current means SSHing in and re-pulling each container by hand.

docker watchtower ugos removes that manual step. If something doesn't come up as expected, check the Watchtower troubleshooting guide for the fixes to the most common errors.

Which UGREEN Models Support Docker?

Docker is only available on UGREEN's DXP-series NASync units, not on every UGREEN NAS: DXP2800, DXP4800 Plus, DXP4800 Pro, DXP2800 GT, DXP4800 GT, DXP6800 Pro, DXP8800 Plus, DXP480T Plus, and the DH4300 Plus. Check your model against UGREEN's current spec sheet before proceeding — entry-level or storage-only UGREEN units without Docker support can't run Watchtower or any other container.

Prerequisites

• A Docker-capable DXP-series NASync unit (see above)
• UGOS or UGOS Pro, updated to a current build
• SSH enabled (Control Panel → Terminal & SSH on the UGOS home page — user/password or key-based login)

Method 1: SSH + Docker Compose (Recommended)

Enable SSH from the UGOS Control Panel, then deploy the same way you would on any Linux Docker host:

# SSH into the NAS
ssh admin@192.168.1.x

# Create a working directory
mkdir -p /volume1/docker/watchtower
cd /volume1/docker/watchtower

# Create docker-compose.yml
cat > docker-compose.yml <<'EOF'
services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    container_name: watchtower
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    environment:
      - WATCHTOWER_CLEANUP=true
      - WATCHTOWER_POLL_INTERVAL=21600
EOF

# Start it
docker compose up -d

For every available setting — schedule syntax, notifications, label-based exclusion — see the Watchtower environment variables reference.

Method 2: UGOS Container Manager App

UGOS Pro ships a basic Container Manager app that can pull an image and start a container through the web interface without SSH. It covers the essentials — image, port mapping, basic environment variables — but it's a thinner tool than Synology's Container Manager or QNAP's Container Station, and doesn't offer the same one-paste Compose-YAML workflow.

1. Open Container Manager (or Docker, depending on your UGOS version) from the desktop
2. Pull the containrrr/watchtower image
3. Create a new container from it
4. Add a bind mount: host path /var/run/docker.sock → container path /var/run/docker.sock
5. Add environment variables as needed — WATCHTOWER_CLEANUP=true, WATCHTOWER_POLL_INTERVAL=21600
6. Enable auto-restart and start the container

If the GUI's environment-variable or volume-mount options feel limited for your setup, Method 1 gives you the same control every other platform in this series gets.

Common UGREEN Watchtower Issues

Issue: Docker option missing entirely

Confirm your model is one of the DXP-series units listed above — Docker isn't available on every UGREEN NAS, and there's no workaround for models that don't ship it.

Issue: "Permission denied" on /var/run/docker.sock

Make sure the SSH account you're using has Docker access — run the compose command with sudo if your account isn't in the Docker group.

Issue: Container Manager shows Watchtower without a health status

Watchtower doesn't expose a Docker health-check endpoint, so a missing or "unknown" health indicator is expected. Confirm it's working with docker logs watchtower.

Recommended UGREEN Configuration

services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    container_name: watchtower
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    environment:
      - WATCHTOWER_CLEANUP=true
      - WATCHTOWER_SCHEDULE=0 0 3 * * *    # 3 AM daily
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS=slack
      - WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_SLACK_HOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/...

See the Watchtower notifications guide for Discord, Telegram, email, and ntfy setup instead of Slack.