Deploying to a platform

Ready-made setups for hosting platforms, each with slonbase and a PostgreSQL database. They all use the image from ghcr.io/ayeshrodz/slonbase.

• Render
• Railway
• Fly.io
• Coolify
• Dokploy
• After the first deploy

The templates use the latest image. To control upgrades, pin a release (:2.1.3) instead.

Disks owned by root. Render, Railway and Fly.io mount their disks at /data owned by root. The image runs as an unprivileged user, which can start but can't write files there, so file uploads would fail. The setups below run the container as root on those platforms (deploy/render/Dockerfile, deploy/fly/Dockerfile, RAILWAY_RUN_UID=0). Coolify and Dokploy use Docker volumes, which keep the image's ownership, so the image runs unchanged there.

#Render

The button reads render.yaml. It creates:

• a web service on the Starter plan, with a 1 GB disk at /data and /api/health as its health check;
• a PostgreSQL 17 database that only the service can reach, with its connection string passed to the service as SLONBASE_DATABASE_URL.

Disks need a paid instance. To use the free plan, remove the disk section and keep files on S3 (Settings → Files storage). Without a disk, hooks and local backups don't survive a redeploy.

Once it's live, find the setup link in the service's Logs. It shows http://127.0.0.1:8090; replace that with the service's https://….onrender.com address.

#Railway

1. Create a project and add PostgreSQL (+ New → Database → PostgreSQL).

2. Add the app: + New → Docker Image → ghcr.io/ayeshrodz/slonbase:latest.

3. In the app's Variables, add:

   Variable	Value
   SLONBASE_DATABASE_URL	${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}
   PORT	8090
   RAILWAY_RUN_UID	0 (see disks owned by root)

4. Attach a volume to the app (right-click it → Attach volume), mounted at /data.

5. In Settings → Networking, generate a domain for port 8090.

Open the setup link from the app's Deploy Logs, replacing http://127.0.0.1:8090 with the generated domain.

#Fly.io

deploy/fly/ has a fly.toml and a two-line Dockerfile that runs the image as root. The fly.toml sets up one machine with a 1 GB volume at /data and a health check on /api/health.

mkdir slonbase-fly && cd slonbase-fly
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ayeshrodz/slonbase/main/deploy/fly/fly.toml
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ayeshrodz/slonbase/main/deploy/fly/Dockerfile
fly launch --copy-config --no-deploy         # pick an app name and a region

For the database, use Fly Managed Postgres (fly mpg create) or any PostgreSQL 14+ server. Then pass the database's connection string and a setup token, and deploy:

fly secrets set SLONBASE_DATABASE_URL='postgres://…' SLONBASE_SETUP_TOKEN="$(openssl rand -hex 24)"
fly deploy

Finish at https://<app>.fly.dev/_/setup?token=<the token>.

Keep it to one machine: the volume belongs to a single machine. To run several instances, keep files on S3 and drop the volume (see several instances).

#Coolify

Use deploy/coolify/slonbase.yaml: + New → Resource → Docker Compose Empty, then paste the file. Coolify generates the database credentials, a 64 character setup token and a URL. Deploy, then open https://<the URL>/_/setup?token=<value of SERVICE_PASSWORD_64_SETUP> (see the resource's Environment Variables).

The file follows Coolify's one-click service template format, so it can be added to Coolify's catalog (see deploy/README.md for submitting it).

#Dokploy

deploy/dokploy/ has a docker-compose.yml and a template.toml in the format of Dokploy's template catalog. Without the catalog:

1. Create a service → Compose, and paste docker-compose.yml.
2. Under Environment, set DB_PASSWORD and SETUP_TOKEN. Use letters and digits, and make the token at least 32 characters (openssl rand -hex 24 gives both).
3. Under Domains, add your domain, with service slonbase and port 8090.
4. Deploy, then open https://<domain>/_/setup?token=<SETUP_TOKEN>.

#After the first deploy

In the dashboard's Settings:

• Application URL: set it to the public https:// address. Emails link to it.
• Trusted proxy: every platform here puts a proxy in front of slonbase. Without this setting, logs, rate limits and superuserIPs see the proxy's address instead of the client's. Use the header your platform documents for the client's address: Fly-Client-IP on Fly.io, and usually X-Forwarded-For elsewhere (see trusted proxy).
• Mail: configure SMTP so verification and password reset emails go out.

Realtime works through all of these platforms' proxies. For backups, the database is the platform's PostgreSQL, so its own backups cover your records. slonbase's scheduled backups (Settings → Backups) also include the files; send them to S3 when the disk isn't backed up.