Self-Hosting

Run RankFlo on your own infrastructure. This guide covers Docker Compose setup, required environment variables, and production best practices.

Docker Compose

The fastest way to self-host RankFlo:

yaml

version: "3.9"

services:
  web:
    image: ghcr.io/rankflo/rankflo:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    env_file:
      - .env
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      redis:
        condition: service_started
    restart: unless-stopped

  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: rankflo
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: rankflo
      POSTGRES_DB: rankflo
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U rankflo"]
      interval: 5s
    restart: unless-stopped

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    volumes:
      - redis_data:/data
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  postgres_data:
  redis_data:

bash

docker compose up -d

Environment Variables

Required

Variable	Description
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection string
`REDIS_URL`	Redis connection string
`AUTH_SECRET`	Random secret for signing sessions (min 32 chars)
`AUTH_URL`	Public URL of your RankFlo instance

Optional

Variable	Default	Description
`PORT`	3000	HTTP server port
`GITHUB_CLIENT_ID`	—	GitHub OAuth client ID
`GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET`	—	GitHub OAuth client secret
`SMTP_HOST`	—	SMTP server for email
`S3_BUCKET`	—	S3-compatible bucket for media
`S3_REGION`	us-east-1	S3 region
`S3_ACCESS_KEY`	—	S3 access key
`S3_SECRET_KEY`	—	S3 secret key
`WEBHOOK_SECRET`	—	Secret for signing outbound webhooks

Production Checklist

Verify all items before going live.

AUTH_SECRET is a cryptographically random string (min 32 chars)
PostgreSQL has connection pooling (PgBouncer)
Redis persistence enabled (appendonly yes)
HTTPS terminated at reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy)
S3 or compatible storage configured for media
Transactional email configured (SMTP or Resend/Postmark)
PostgreSQL backups scheduled

Reverse Proxy

A minimal nginx configuration:

nginx

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name your-domain.com;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/certs/your-domain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/your-domain.key;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Updating

bash

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Database migrations run automatically on startup. Always back up your database before upgrading.