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Self-hosted

A getting started guide to self-hosting Buildel.

Install​

Buildel is designed to be self-hosted through Docker. This guide will walk you through the process of setting up Buildel on your own server using Docker Compose.

tip

This guide uses Docker Compose example to simplify the process. In a production environment, you should consider a more advanced setup. We recommend hosting Buildel on Fly.io as it works well with Elixir applications.

To install Buildel, you need to have Docker and Docker Compose installed on your machine. If you don't have them, you can install them by following the instructions on the Docker website.

Quick start​

To get started, clone the Buildel repository from GitHub.

git clone https://github.com/elpassion/buildel buildel

In the downloaded directory, navigate to the self-hosting folder. It contains:

  • docker-compose.yml - the Docker Compose configuration file with all necessary services
  • init-database.sql - the SQL script to initialize the database
  • postgresql.conf - the PostgreSQL configuration file

Open the docker-compose.yml file, under the api service, you'll see the environment section. Let's generate the values for SECRET_KEY_BASE and ENCRYPTION_KEY variables and replace them in the docker-compose.yml file.

# SECRET_KEY_BASE
openssl rand -base64 48

# ENCRYPTION_KEY
openssl rand -base64 32

Now you can start the Buildel services using Docker Compose.

info

On the first run, you might need to comment out the postgresql.conf volume in the docker-compose.yml file to initialize the database.

docker-compose up

Env variables​

Here're the currently supported ENV vars:

API​

DATABASE_URL (required)​

The URL to the PostgreSQL database.

SECRET_KEY_BASE (required)​

A secret key used as a base to generate secrets for encrypting and signing data. For example, cookies and tokens are signed by default, but they may also be encrypted if desired.

ENCRYPTION_KEY (required)​

A Vault key used to encrypt data.

LOG_LEVEL (optional)​

The level of logging.

ECTO_IPV6 (optional)​

Whether to use IPv6 for the database connection.

POOL_SIZE (optional)​

The number of database connections to keep in the pool. The default is 10.

PHX_HOST (required)​

The host to bind the Phoenix server to.

PORT (required)​

The port to bind the Phoenix server to.

NLM_API_URL (required)​

The URL to the NLM API service.

PAGE_URL (required)​

The URL to the web service.

SENTRY_DSN (optional)​

The DSN for Sentry error tracking.

SKIP_FLAME (optional)​

Whether to disable Knowledge base graph generation.

FLY_API_TOKEN (optional)​

The Fly.io API token. Required if Flame is enabled.

Web​

API_URL (required)​

The URL to the API service.

PAGE_URL (required)​

The URL to the web service.

SENTRY_DSN (optional)​

The DSN for Sentry error tracking.

SESSION_SECRET (required)​

A secret key used to sign the session cookie.

GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID (required)​

The Google OAuth client ID.

GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET (required)​

The Google OAuth client secret.

GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI (required)​

The Google OAuth redirect URI.

Join our Community​

If you're curious or have any questions about Buildel, feel free to reach out to our community on Discord.