n8n-docs/docs/hosting/installation/server-setups/docker-compose.md

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tutorial

Docker-Compose

If you have already installed Docker and Docker-Compose, then you can start with step 4.

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1. Install Docker

This can vary depending on the Linux distribution used. You can find detailed instructions in the Docker documentation{:target=_blank .external-link}. The following example is for Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

2. Optional: Non-root user access

Run when logged in as the user that should also be allowed to run docker:

sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}
su - ${USER}

3. Install Docker-Compose

This can vary depending on the Linux distribution used. You can find detailed instructions in the Docker documentation{:target=_blank .external-link}.

The example below is for Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install docker-compose-plugin

4. DNS setup

Add A record to route the subdomain accordingly:

Type: A
Name: n8n (or the desired subdomain)
IP address: <IP_OF_YOUR_SERVER>

5. Create Docker Compose file

Create a docker-compose.yml file. Paste the following in the file:

version: "3.7"

services:
  caddy:
    image: caddy:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - caddy_data:/data
      - ${DATA_FOLDER}:/config
      - ${DATA_FOLDER}/Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile

  n8n:
    image: docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:5678:5678"
    environment:
      - N8N_HOST=${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}
      - N8N_PORT=5678
      - N8N_PROTOCOL=https
      - NODE_ENV=production
      - WEBHOOK_URL=https://${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}/
      - GENERIC_TIMEZONE=${GENERIC_TIMEZONE}
    volumes:
      - n8n_data/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n

	volumes:
		n8n_data:
			external: true
		caddy_data:
			external: true

If you are planning on reading/writing local files with n8n (for example, by using the Write Binary File node, you will need to configure a data directory for those files here. If you are running n8n as a root user, add this under volumes for the n8n service:

      - /root/local-files:/files

If you are running n8n as a non-root user, add this under volumes for the n8n service:

      - /home/<YOUR USERNAME>/n8n-local-files:/files

You will now be able to write files to the /files directory in n8n and they will appear on your server in either /root/local-files or /home/<YOUR USERNAME>/n8n-local-files, respectively.

6. Create .env file

Create a .env file and change it accordingly.

# Replace <directory-path> with the path to the directory containing your Caddyfile
DATA_FOLDER=/<directory-path>

# The top level domain to serve from
DOMAIN_NAME=example.com

# The subdomain to serve from
SUBDOMAIN=n8n

# DOMAIN_NAME and SUBDOMAIN combined decide where n8n will be reachable from
# above example would result in: https://n8n.example.com

# Optional timezone to set which gets used by Cron-Node by default
# If not set New York time will be used
GENERIC_TIMEZONE=Europe/Berlin

# The email address to use for the SSL certificate creation
SSL_EMAIL=user@example.com

7. Create a Caddyfile

Create a Caddyfile in the DATA_FOLDER path you set in the .env file. Make sure you replace <subdomain> and <domain_name> with the same values you set in the .env file.

<subdomain>.<domain_name> {
    reverse_proxy n8n:5678 {
      flush_interval -1
    }
}

7. Create the Docker volumes

Create the Docker volume which is defined as n8n_data, In this volume, the database file from SQLite as well as the encryption key will be saved.

docker volume create n8n_data

We will also create a volume for the Caddy data, This is defined as caddy_data.

docker volume create caddy_data

8. Start Docker Compose

n8n can now be started via:

sudo docker compose up -d

To stop the container:

sudo docker compose stop

9. Done

n8n will now be reachable using the above defined subdomain + domain combination. The above example would result in: https://n8n.example.com

n8n will only be reachable using https and not using http.

!!! warning "Secure your n8n instance" Make sure that you set up authentication your n8n instance.

Updating

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Next steps

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