Help by deploying a work flow

Questions
1

So, I am doing some software development and I was creating a chat bot with n8n. Never used docker before so I was experimenting a bit. Now, I need to deploy the workflow I created with n8n into a server. Is there a way to deploy the docker comtainer and start automatically the n8n workflow? I already did the time trigger, but do I need to loggin by opening the browser, open the workflow and setting the credentials (API keys) manually? Us there a way to do all of this professionally? This is no a “school project”, actually is something serious for a big company. Help please :folded_hands:

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  • Database (default: SQLite):
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
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2

Welcome to the n8n community @Ryutaro_Arimura

Yes, to answer your question, you absolutely can fully automate the deployment and configuration of n8n. You never need to actually log into the web interface and set credentials or activate workflow.

Your goal is to create a docker-compose.yml file that defines everything.

version: '3.8'

services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:v3.6
    command:
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--providers.docker.exposedbydefault=false"
      - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.httpchallenge=true"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.httpchallenge.entrypoint=web"
      - "--certificatesresolvers.letsencrypt.acme.email=${SSL_EMAIL}" # Your email
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro"
      - "traefik_data:/letsencrypt"
    restart: unless-stopped

  postgres:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USER}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_NAME}
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ['CMD-SHELL', 'pg_isready -U ${DB_USER}']
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    restart: unless-stopped

  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n:latest
    environment:
      - N8N_HOST=${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME} # e.g., n8n.yourcompany.com
      - N8N_PROTOCOL=https
      - WEBHOOK_URL=https://${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}/
      - NODE_ENV=production
      - DB_TYPE=postgresdb
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_HOST=postgres
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_PORT=5432
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_DATABASE=${DB_NAME}
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_USER=${DB_USER}
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_ACTIVE=true
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_USER=${N8N_USER}
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD=${N8N_PASSWORD}
      - N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY=${N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY} # Generate a random key
    volumes:
      - n8n_data:/home/node/.n8n
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.n8n.rule=Host(`${SUBDOMAIN}.${DOMAIN_NAME}`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.n8n.entrypoints=websecure"
      - "traefik.http.routers.n8n.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt"
      - "traefik.http.services.n8n.loadbalancer.server.port=5678"
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  postgres_data:
  n8n_data:
  traefik_data:

Create a .env file in the same directory as your docker-compose.yml :slight_smile:
With this setup alone, you have created a secure automated environment.

3

Hi @Ryutaro_Arimura Welcome!
Instead of actually deploying the containers, why not to keep your production app and n8n separated and let those interact using webhooks with authentications, as that would be a better take in case of a ChatBot just use Webhook trigger and respond to webhook with proper auth and that would really work.