n8n on Fly.io

This repository contains a Dockerfile and a fly.toml configuration file to deploy an n8n server on Fly.io.

Prerequisites

• Fly.io account
• Fly command-line tool aka Flyctl: install and set up Fly.io on your local machine as per the instructions there.
• Docker

Deployment Process

Step 1: Clone Repository

Clone this repository to your local machine with the following command:

git clone https://github.com/TheFSilver/n8nonflyio.git

Step 2: Navigate to the Repository Directory

Move into the newly cloned repository's directory with this command:

cd n8nonflyio

Step 3: Launch Flyctl

You can then launch Flyctl using:

flyctl launch

Step 4: Configuration

Upon launch, you'll be prompted to copy the configuration to the new app, select Y and press Enter.
Then, choose your desired app name and press Enter.
Default app name is ìloven8n.

Step 5: Choose your server region

After selecting an app name, you'll be asked to choose a region for deployment.
Use the Up & Down arrows to select a region and press Enter.

You'll then receive a Hostname.
Keep a note of this as this will be your N8N_HOST variable at step 10.

Example:

Hostname: iloven8n.fly.dev

Step 6: Set Up a Postgresql Database

When asked if you'd like to set up a Postgresql database, select Y, press Enter and choose the following option:
Development - Single node, 1x shared CPU, 256MB RAM, 1GB disk.

When asked if you'd like to scale single node pg to zero after one hour, select N and press Enter.

You should see a summary similar to this:

Postgres cluster iloven8n-db created
Username:    postgres
Password:    owliSiATKsIszoF
Hostname:    iloven8n-db.internal
Flycast:     fdaa:2:1472:0:1::5
Proxy port:  5432
Postgres port:  5433
Connection string: postgres://postgres:[email protected]:5432    

Keep a note of the summary you'll receive as this will be used at step 10.

Step 7: Skip Upstash Redis Database Setup

When asked if you'd like to set up an Upstash Redis database, select N and press Enter.

Step 8: Skip Immediate Deployment

You will then be asked if you'd like to deploy now. Select N and press Enter.

Step 9: Set Up Secrets

Set up your secrets using the flyctl secrets set command.
You will need to replace each placeholders with your specific information in the following command:

flyctl secrets set \
  DB_POSTGRESDB_DATABASE="iloven8n" \
  DB_POSTGRESDB_HOST="iloven8n-db.internal" \
  DB_POSTGRESDB_PASSWORD="owliSiATKsIszoF" \
  N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY="SomeRandomAndSecureEncryptionKeyOfYourChoice" \
  N8N_HOST="iloven8n.fly.dev" \
  WEBHOOK_URL="https://iloven8n.fly.dev"

DB_POSTGRESDB_DATABASE is your app name.
DB_POSTGRESDB_HOST is your Database Hostname from step 6.
DB_POSTGRESDB_PASSWORD is your Database Password from step 6.
N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY is up to you. ;)
N8N_HOST is your app Hostname from step 5.
WEBHOOK_URL is your app Hostname from step 5 preceded by "https://".

Step 10: Update the fly.toml file

Go to your Fly.io Dashboard
Click on the app which name starts by the app name you chose and ends by "-db".
Go to the Volumes section on the left menu.
Copy the value located under the id column of the Volumes table. It usually starts with "vol_".

Open the fly.toml file, paste the below code at the end of the file and replace the mounts source value by the one you just copied.

Example:

[mounts]
  source = "vol_id" # Replace vol_id by your database volumn id
  destination = "/home/node/.n8n"

Step 11: Deploy Application

Finally, deploy your application by running the following command:

flyctl deploy

Step 12: Add 2GB of RAM to your server

Once the installation is complete, I highly recommend you to scale the VM memory to 2GB of RAM to avoid n8n crashing due to lack of memory:

fly scale memory 2048

Your server will be updated accordingly.
Then navigate to your N8N_HOST URL to set up the owner account.

Congrats and welcome on N8N!