n8n is a free and open node-based Workflow Automation Tool. It can be self-hosted, easily extended, and so also used with internal tools.
Create 1 folder and 3 files in the same directory:
- storage/
- .env
- init-data.sh
- docker-compose.yml
touch .env init-data.sh docker-compose.yml
mkdir storage
chmod +x init-data.sh # make the init-data.sh executable
chmod 777 storage # make sure the storage folder is writable
POSTGRES_USER=n8n
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=n8n
POSTGRES_DB=n8n
POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER=n7n
POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_PASSWORD=n7n
#!/bin/bash
set -e;
if [ -n "${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER:-}" ] && [ -n "${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_PASSWORD:-}" ]; then
psql -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 --username "$POSTGRES_USER" --dbname "$POSTGRES_DB" <<-EOSQL
CREATE USER ${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER} WITH PASSWORD '${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_PASSWORD}';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE ${POSTGRES_DB} TO ${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER};
GRANT CREATE ON SCHEMA public TO ${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER};
EOSQL
else
echo "SETUP INFO: No Environment variables given!"
fi
---
services:
postgres:
image: postgres:16
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
- POSTGRES_USER
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD
- POSTGRES_DB
- POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER
- POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_PASSWORD
healthcheck:
test: ['CMD-SHELL', 'pg_isready -h localhost -U ${POSTGRES_USER} -d ${POSTGRES_DB}']
interval: 5s
timeout: 5s
retries: 10
volumes:
- ./db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
- ./init-data.sh:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init-data.sh
n8n:
image: docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
- DB_TYPE=postgresdb
- DB_POSTGRESDB_HOST=postgres
- DB_POSTGRESDB_PORT=5432
- DB_POSTGRESDB_DATABASE=${POSTGRES_DB}
- DB_POSTGRESDB_USER=${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_USER}
- DB_POSTGRESDB_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_NON_ROOT_PASSWORD}
- N8N_EDITOR_BASE_URL=http://localhost:5678/
#- N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false
links:
- postgres
depends_on:
postgres:
condition: service_healthy
ports:
- 5678:5678
volumes:
- ./storage:/home/node/.n8n
When running through a reverse proxy, there's a couple of env vars needed (it's a bit weird):
- Normally you'd provide a url, that the app should expect and should set when generating links.
- However, here
N8N_EDITOR_BASE_URL
is not sufficient, and doesn't look like it's working for this, so the host, port and protocol are still required. - However 2, if you set the port to 443 (as you will be accessing the app via your reverse proxy & https) - the app itself will run on this port (instead of the default: 5678), so you also need to change the container's internal port to 443.
environment:
- N8N_HOST=n8n.mydomain.com
- N8N_PORT=443
- N8N_PROTOCOL=https
- N8N_EDITOR_BASE_URL=https://n8n.mydomain.com
ports:
- 5678:443