Self-Hosting with Docker

Learn how to configure and deploy Supabase with Docker.

Docker is the easiest way to get started with self-hosted Supabase. This guide assumes you are running the command from the machine you intend to host from.

Before you begin#

You need the following installed in your system: Git and Docker (Windows, MacOS, or Linux).

Running Supabase#

Follow these steps to start Supabase locally:

After all the services have started you can see them running in the background:

Please secure your services as soon as possible using the instructions below.

Accessing Supabase Studio#

You can access the Supabase Dashboard through the API gateway on port 8000. For example: http://<your-ip>:8000, or localhost:8000 if you are running Docker locally.

You will be prompted for a username and password. By default, the credentials are:

• Username: supabase
• Password: this_password_is_insecure_and_should_be_updated

You should change these credentials as soon as possible using the instructions below.

Accessing the APIs#

Each of the APIs are available through the the same API gateway:

• REST: http://<your-ip>:8000/rest/v1/
• Auth: http://<your-domain>:8000/auth/v1/
• Storage: http://<your-domain>:8000/storage/v1/
• Realtime: http://<your-domain>:8000/realtime/v1/

Accessing your Edge Functions#

Edge Functions are stored in volumes/functions. The default setup has a hello Function that you can invoke on http://<your-domain>:8000/functions/v1/hello.

You can add new Functions as volumes/functions/<FUNCTION_NAME>/index.ts. Restart the functions service to pick up the changes: docker compose restart functions --no-deps

Accessing Postgres#

You can connect to the Postgres database locally on port 5432. For example, if you have psql on your local machine you can run:

The default password is your-super-secret-and-long-postgres-password. You should change this as soon as possible using the instructions below. By default the database is not accessible from outside the local machine. You can change this by updating the docker-compose.yml file.

Securing your services#

While we provided you with some example secrets for getting started, you should NEVER deploy your Supabase setup using the defaults we have provided. Please follow all of the steps in this section to ensure you have a secure setup, and then restart all services to pick up the changes.

Generate API Keys#

Create a new JWT_SECRET and store it securely.

We can use your JWT Secret to generate new anon and service API keys using the form below. Update the "JWT Secret" and then run "Generate JWT" once for the SERVICE_KEY and once for the ANON_KEY:

Update API Keys#

Replace the values in the .env file:

• ANON_KEY - replace with an anon key
• SERVICE_ROLE_KEY - replace with a service key

You will need to restart the services for the changes to take effect.

Update Secrets#

Update the .env file with your own secrets. In particular, these are required:

• POSTGRES_PASSWORD: the password for the postgres role.
• JWT_SECRET: used by PostgREST and GoTrue, among others.
• SITE_URL: the base URL of your site.
• SMTP_*: mail server credentials. You can use any SMTP server.

You will need to restart the services for the changes to take effect.

Dashboard Authentication#

The dashboard is protected with Basic Authentication. The default user and password MUST be updated before using Supabase in production. Update the following values in the .env file:

• DASHBOARD_USERNAME: The default username for the Dashboard
• DASHBOARD_PASSWORD: The default password for the Dashboard

You can also add more credentials in ./docker/volumes/api/kong.yml. For example:

You will need to restart the services for the changes to take effect.

Restarting all services#

You can restart services to pick up any configuration changes by running:

Be aware that this will result in downtime while the services are restarting.

Stopping all services#

You can stop Supabase by running docker compose stop in same directory as your docker-compose.yml file.

Uninstalling#

You can stop Supabase by running the following in same directory as your docker-compose.yml file:

This will destroy all data in the database and storage volumes, so be careful!

Managing your secrets#

Many components inside Supabase use secure secrets and passwords. These are listed in the self-hosting env file, but we strongly recommend using a secrets manager when deploying to production. Plain text files like dotenv lead to accidental costly leaks.

Some suggested systems include:

• Doppler
• Infisical
• Key Vault by Azure (Microsoft)
• Secrets Manager by AWS
• Secrets Manager by GCP
• Vault by Hashicorp

Advanced#

Everything beyond this point in the guide helps you understand how the system works and how you can modify it to suit your needs.

Architecture#

Supabase is a combination of open source tools, each specifically chosen for Enterprise-readiness.

If the tools and communities already exist, with an MIT, Apache 2, or equivalent open license, we will use and support that tool. If the tool doesn't exist, we build and open source it ourselves.

• Kong is a cloud-native API gateway.
• GoTrue is an JWT based API for managing users and issuing JWT tokens.
• PostgREST is a web server that turns your PostgreSQL database directly into a RESTful API
• Realtime is an Elixir server that allows you to listen to PostgreSQL inserts, updates, and deletes using websockets. Realtime polls Postgres' built-in replication functionality for database changes, converts changes to JSON, then broadcasts the JSON over websockets to authorized clients.
• Storage provides a RESTful interface for managing Files stored in S3, using Postgres to manage permissions.
• postgres-meta is a RESTful API for managing your Postgres, allowing you to fetch tables, add roles, and run queries, etc.
• PostgreSQL is an object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance.

For the system to work cohesively, some services require additional configuration within the Postgres database. For example, the APIs and Auth system require several default roles and the pgjwt Postgres extension.

You can find all the default extensions inside the schema migration scripts repo. These scripts are mounted at /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d to run automatically when starting the database container.

Configuring services#

Each system has a number of configuration options which can be found in the relevant product documentation.

• Postgres
• PostgREST
• Realtime
• GoTrue
• Storage
• Kong

These configuration items are generally added to the env section of each service, inside the docker-compose.yml section. If these configuration items are sensitive, they should be stored in a secret manager or using an .env file and then referenced using the ${} syntax.

Common configuration#

Each system can be configured independently. Some of the most common configuration options are listed below.

Configuring an email server#

You will need to use a production-ready SMTP server for sending emails. You can configure the SMTP server by updating the the following environment variables:

We recommend using AWS SES. It's extremely cheap and reliable. Restart all services to pick up the new configuration.

Configuring S3 Storage#

By default all files are stored locally on the server. You can configure the Storage service to use S3 by updating the following environment variables:

You can find all the available options in the storage repository. Restart the storage service to pick up the changes: docker compose restart storage --no-deps

Setting database's log_min_messages#

By default, docker compose sets the database's log_min_messages configuration to fatal to prevent redundant logs generated by Realtime. You can configure log_min_messages using any of the Postgres Severity Levels.

Exposing your Postgres database#

By default, the Postgres database is only accessible locally. If you want to expose it to the outside world, you can update the docker-compose.yml file and remove the 127.0.0.1: prefix from the ports section:

This is less-secure, so please make sure you are running a firewall in front of your server.

File storage backend on macOS#

By default, Storage backend is set to file, which is to use local files as the storage backend. For macOS compatibility, you need to choose VirtioFS as the Docker container file sharing implementation (in Docker Desktop -> Preferences -> General).

Setting up logging with the Analytics server#

Additional configuration is required for self-hosting the Analytics server. For the full setup instructions, see Self Hosting Analytics.

Upgrading Analytics#

Due to the changes in the Analytics server, you will need to run the following commands to upgrade your Analytics server:

Demo#

A minimal setup working on Ubuntu, hosted on Digital Ocean.