Coolify Crash Course | Self Host 101 | Secure Set up

In this video CJ shows you what Coolify is, what it does, how to choose a server to deploy it to, how to lock it down with https, how to deploy several types of applications on it, how to setup s3 compatible storage for file uploads / backups and more.
View all the Self Host 101 videos here: • Self Host 101
00:00 Intro
00:56 What can you do with Coolify?
02:09 Coolify minimum specs required
02:59 Create a VPS with Hetzner and Set Up with Cloud Config
06:16 ssh into VPS as root and update / upgrade
07:18 Install Coolify
08:29 Coolify: localhost vs remote server
10:25 Update VPS user passwords
11:51 Set up Coolify https instance domain and https wildcard domain
16:04 Why not Cloudflare?
16:41 Create a firewall and lock down all unused ports
17:47 Update Coolify user password and setup 2fa
18:49 Deploy a static website to Coolify with an https subdomain
20:55 www redirects and custom Caddy configs
25:25 Create dynamic proxy configurations
27:04 Create a basic Next.js project in Coolify
28:09 What is nixpacks?
29:37 Deploy a basic Next.js application with nixpacks
31:38 Create a Github application in Coolify
33:31 Deploy a Next.js app with auto deploy
35:41 Create a postgres database for a t3 application
37:10 Create a Dockerfile to push the db schema to our database
40:35 Create a Dockerfile to push the db schema from a private repo
44:46 Deploy a t3 app
47:10 Set up http basic auth with Caddy
51:01 Upgrade Coolify
52:06 Deploy a git repo with an existing docker compose file
59:26 VPS status dashboards
01:00:56 Deploy a service with docker compose
01:04:13 Deploy supabase and monitor VPS status during deploy
01:07:00 Set up minIO / s3 compatible storage
01:10:42 Configure database backups
01:15:17 Coolify cloud demo
01:18:37 Where and how to get help with Coolify
01:22:22 CJ's opinions and final thoughts about Coolify
01:28:20 Thanks!
List to episode 730 of Syntax: syntax.fm/show/730/own-your-o...
Coolify: coolify.io/
Learn more about hetzner: www.hetzner.com/cloud/
Sign up for hetzner with coolify affiliate link (supports the coolify creator): coolify.io/hetzner
Cloud Config Example: gist.github.com/w3cj/cdd447b1...
Cloud init documentation: cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/l...
Learn about DNS in the Self Host Series: • Self Host 101 - Run Mu...
Read the Caddy docs: caddyserver.com/
Read the caddy-docker-proxy docs: github.com/lucaslorentz/caddy...
Caddy redir directive: caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfil...
nixpacks: github.com/railwayapp/nixpacks
How nixpacks works: nixpacks.com/docs/how-it-works
nixpacks custom file: nixpacks.com/docs/configurati...
Learn Docker: • Start Using Docker Tod...
Dockerfile to clone from private repo with SSH key: gist.github.com/w3cj/8b510e32...
Caddy basicauth directive: caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfil...
glances: github.com/nicolargo/glances
glances docker docs: github.com/nicolargo/glances/...
grafana: grafana.com
prometheus: prometheus.io/docs/introducti...
node_exporter: github.com/prometheus/node_ex...
Monitoring a Linux host with Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Docker Compose: grafana.com/docs/grafana-clou...
minio: min.io/docs/minio/linux/index...
Coolify cloud: coolify.io/pricing
Join the Coolify discord: coolify.io/discord
Open an issue on Coolify: github.com/coollabsio/coolify...
Have a discussion about Coolify: github.com/coollabsio/coolify...
Corrections:
5:08 Since v4.0.0-beta.259 - coolify allows for a non root user with sudo NOPASSWD privileges. See description for link to docs: coolify.io/docs/knowledge-bas...
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#vps #webdevelopment #selfhosted

[@syntaxfm]

00:00 Intro 00:56 What can you do with Coolify? 02:09 Coolify minimum specs required 02:59 Create a VPS with Hetzner and Set Up with Cloud Config 06:16 ssh into VPS as root and update / upgrade 07:18 Install Coolify 08:29 Coolify: localhost vs remote server 10:25 Update VPS user passwords 11:51 Set up Coolify https instance domain and https wildcard domain 16:04 Why not Cloudflare? 16:41 Create a firewall and lock down all unused ports 17:47 Update Coolify user password and setup 2fa 18:49 Deploy a static website to Coolify with an https subdomain 20:55 www redirects and custom Caddy configs 25:25 Create dynamic proxy configurations 27:04 Create a basic Next.js project in Coolify 28:09 What is nixpacks? 29:37 Deploy a basic Next.js application with nixpacks 31:38 Create a Github application in Coolify 33:31 Deploy a Next.js app with auto deploy 35:41 Create a postgres database for a t3 application 37:10 Create a Dockerfile to push the db schema to our database 40:35 Create a Dockerfile to push the db schema from a private repo 44:46 Deploy a t3 app 47:10 Set up http basic auth with Caddy 51:01 Upgrade Coolify 52:06 Deploy a git repo with an existing docker compose file 59:26 VPS status dashboards 01:00:56 Deploy a service with docker compose 01:04:13 Deploy supabase and monitor VPS status during deploy 01:07:00 Set up minIO / s3 compatible storage 01:10:42 Configure database backups 01:15:17 Coolify cloud demo 01:18:37 Where and how to get help with Coolify 01:22:22 CJ's opinions and final thoughts about Coolify 01:28:20 Thanks!

[@heyandras]

Thank you, CJ, for making this video! 💜 (the dev behind Coolify here)

[@bassjunk3]

great work, looking forward to having a play with it soon :)

[@user-vk9in7qg4b]

I also want to thank you to for this great project Coolify. Are there any plans on an example for how to configure SvelteKit for Coolify?

[@kumardeepanshu8503]

hi , i am using Coolify as a remote server to deploy a git repo with docker-compose file , and it it not loading the docker-compose.yaml, but when I do it in local server it is working fine.

[@heyandras]

@@kumardeepanshu8503 can you please open a github issue?

[@heyandras]

@@user-vk9in7qg4b you can find the required conf for sveltekit in the docs, but I will add one to the example repo. 🙂

[@darkcss1054]

You're one of the best teachers I've ever seen. I swear any other youtuber talking about these topics would lose my attention every 10 seconds, but you, sir, have a special talent.

[@Alex-bc3xe]

It's crazy how in depth this tutorial was. I can't say thanks enough.

[@SRG-Learn-Code]

I think this is the best series I've seen in a while. So many opportunities... I've watched some home labs setups but nothing so deep. Thanks a lot for sharing.

[@syntaxfm]

Thanks for watching!

[@stringyGG]

Appreciate the opinion section at the end. It's easy to get carried away and just dive straight into using something like this out of ease of use. I agree, in the not to distant future this will be awesome.

[@billyledev]

Hey CJ and Syntax team, thanks for putting this outstanding video together. It's very thorough and easy to follow. I've set up my Coolify before this video came out and had some difficulties understanding all the different configurations and settings within Coolify. This video shed some light on that and helped me understand how and what I can do with Coolify.

[@returnZeroo]

This is most comprehensive video on coolify. Thanks ❤

Thanks CJ! Another great video. Also appreciate the opinions at the end. You've covered so much already, but maybe it could be interesting to make a video covering the considerations and best practices when self hosting a production app with 2-3 services (like a service, db and a message queue). This could be like a summary or overview video for the series, tying it together.

[@syntaxfm]

I like this idea! I think a general multi-tier architecture overview would be good to cover at some point.

[@superwin06]

@@syntaxfm I'd like to see this as well. Thanks!

[@simplyexplained875]

What an incredibly in--depth video. Wow. I'm stunned.

[@graphicevolutionHD]

Really enjoyed the process, thank you! I rented a VPS just for fun and i don't regret.

[@phishbacon]

I appreciate the opinion section. I use docker, docker-compose, and traefik for my personal server. While watching, i had the urge to get coolify up and running just for that pretty front end. I might still do it. Either way, for people just getting started with these technologies, im jealous that you have something like Coolify. Very cool tool and very informative video.

[@jbphilippi]

I'm feeling a bit stupid for asking but I have just recently installed on my proxmox a Ubuntu server instance and there I would like to run docker containers and within those docker containers for example databases. I could now install coolify and don't really have much of the hassle of managing the containers but I could easily spin up databases with the click of a button. Is my understanding correct? What about things like passing through GPU?

[@syntaxfm]

You should be able to use coolify for this. Pass through GPU would need to be handled within proxmox.

[@flwi]

I appreciate the honest feedback at the end. You asked for new topics. I would be interested in kubernetes. I've heard good things about it at larger scale, but recently got aware that it's also handy for smaller projects. I like the fact that it's more iac. One thing I found discouraging in this video about coolio, was that everything was "click-ops" and I'm quite bad at remembering things. My dream scenario would be to spin up a vServer at hetzner with sth like terraform to get a one-instance kubernetes cluster and then just deploy the apps with kubernetes tooling all reproducible with code. Wdyt?

[@jefferyosei101]

This is a very beautiful video, learnt so much for myself and use case for my homelab, thank you so much CJ!

[@TN2525]

This is an amazing and thorough tutorial video! 🥰

[@belkocik]

Coolify is absolutely good tool. Thank you for making this video. Would love to see more tutorials about Coolify when it got stable version. 😊

[@flwi]

Wow, this is _exactly_ what I was looking for. Can't wait to try it out. Great tutorial!

[@AnthonyCandaele]

Thanks a lot, this is a great resource to start self hosting with Coolify 👍

[@talensjr]

Finally is here!! Thanks! 🚀

[@Crypherr]

Perfect video for my use case. Thanks a ton.

[@Klausterfull]

Absolutely great explanation! Thank you so much! ❤

[@WealthWaveClipsDaily]

Gold mine! Thanks you for content.

[@jorgeberroa9874]

Loved every second of this video. I’ve been waiting for it to drop. I was ready to go all in on coolify but after cj thoughts might be going manual for my upcoming production migration. Was really hoping to use this for that 😢

[@syntaxfm]

I've been looking at assembling some open source tools to get a coolify like experience. dockge is a docker compose web dashboard - github.com/louislam/dockge portainer is a docker compose dashboard (with predefined stacks like coolify) but the community edition is limited in features - docs.portainer.io/ There are a bunch of other web dashboards for docker listed here - github.com/veggiemonk/awesome-docker?tab=readme-ov-file#web caddy-docker-proxy makes creating caddy configs for containers much easier: github.com/lucaslorentz/caddy-docker-proxy webhook could be used for auto builds / deploys on merge - github.com/adnanh/webhook -CJ

[@987Stephen1]

CJ, you are amazing.

[@JuanMoisesTorrijos]

Coolify is fantastic! I really appreciate this video. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Dokku next, it's such an amazing project. Plus, the person maintaining it, Jose Gonzalez, is super cool too!

[@abdelilahou2822]

Yeeeeeeees thank youuuu CJ ❤❤

[@ArionKosturi]

Great job man 🎉

[@yunyang6267]

Thank you. I've only used Railway and Vercel so far, so this video really helped me understand what setting up my own server looks like. Could you set up two servers in a future video to show us an example of how to work with multiple servers and synchronize them with multiple databases?

[@2mbst1]

These videos + coolify are a game changer. I don't have a reason to use vercel anymore. I'll still use fly, for some very specific elixir/phoenix stuff, but for everyething else: it's gonna be coolify from now on.

[@jofftiquez]

The way you divide the relevant parts into chunks made it more easier to consume even those the video is long. This should be the standard format on how to make tutorial videos.

[@prashlovessamosa]

Thanks CJ

[@NithurM]

I am trying coolify right now. So, this tutorial helped me in a lot of ways. Also, would it make sense to bring docker (I have watched your other video) into this series and make a video about hosting multiple containers (for different stack like express app, nextjs, etc) in a VPS and setting them up with Caddy (with different domain name)? Plus CI/CD etc

[@danko95bgd]

Thanks very nice guide. Any chance of covering Ansible in the future maybe for either basic vps setup or even local dev machine.

[@ajayasok2366]

Thank you

[@saidyeter]

awesome content

[@johnwalter8024]

Great video, what I want to see from you additionally ıs setting up cloudflare tunnels(which they are free) and additionally for coolify to use tunnels. Love your work man.

[@syntaxfm]

I wasn't able to test this, but coolify has some built in options for working with tunnels: coolify.io/docs/knowledge-base/cloudflare/tunnels

[@johnwalter8024]

@@syntaxfm thank you, I tried to set it up but couldn’t manage to make it work especially remote servers

[@johnwalter8024]

@@syntaxfm another thing that would be cool is a guide for remote servers with coolify

[@kelvincheung1853]

Thanks CJ!! Is it possible to also teach us how to set up load balance on coolify?

[@damainjoseph328]

Hi CJ, Great job on this video! After listening to the syntax episode I tried coolifiy and I agree with your views at the end. I am very interested in how you would do this manually with just a server from 0 to production and what tools you depend on for this. If you already have videos on this I would love to view them. Thanks

[@syntaxfm]

I show the basics in these 2 videos: Setting up caddy - kzbin.info/www/bejne/o33dn4mid6anmck Ways to get CI/CD on a VPS - kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHiaZ3ePitF2e9U I have not gotten into more complex production tasks like load balancing, stress testing, log drains, monitoring / alerts, backups etc. but if there is enough interest, I might start to cover these types of things over on the Coding Garden channel. -CJ

[@damainjoseph328]

@@syntaxfm thanks a lot. I'll watch the series. BTW this video finally got me to check out sentry

[@juanmiguelguerrero7222]

I love Coolify

[@nigelnyakudya2262]

How does it compare to Dokploy can you do a video?

[@riverhillai]

Thanks cj. For the redirect part of this video, can I use cloudflare page rule (forwarding)? Do they work the same way? Or do I need to set up both?

[@syntaxfm]

You only need to set up redirects in one place. If your users are accessing your instance via cloudflare, it is perfectly fine to set them up there only. If users are accessing your coolify instance directly without cloudflare, you'd need to set them up in coolify.

[@greendsnow]

Bro, your mustache has pierced my heart :D Awesome content, I want to cry for the quality of the content. 47:00 Can you please show how to add a MFA like Authelia? I don't trust username/password combination. They're open to brute force attacks.

[@syntaxfm]

I actually got authelia up and running while testing! This is possible with the caddy forward_auth directive: caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile/directives/forward_auth#authelia It was a bit too involved to show in this tutorial, but I might start doing more self host content over on the Coding Garden channel. -CJ

[@greendsnow]

​@@syntaxfm Yes! Yes! Yes! I won the KZbin lottery.

[@flwi]

53:35 "I didn't debug this for 2h" 😂 Those errors are the worst. I recently lost plenty of time because I used an env var wrong. Had the value quoted where it didn't need to be quoted and that was a tough one to spot.

[@FunkyELF]

EDIT: never mind. I was trying to find it by scrubbing the video but then I found it w/ the bookmarks in the pinned comment. In what section is the firewall configured? I'm unfamiliar with Hertzner, is there a firewall to configure at that level or just a firewall on the machine itself?

[@markasena]

Yey Coolify!

[@SRG-Learn-Code]

I agree about managing docker compose and caddy. What would you say is the best way to do deploys on pr merging? I think that is the last magic I would consider using coolify on.

[@rand0mtv660]

You could write some custom scripts or use something like Ansible and write playbooks that will run all the commands you need to deploy a certain PR, but compared to using Coolify that would be way more work. It's definitely interesting to explore and learn, but if you are not interested in doing something so manual, then yeah Coolify might be a better way to do.

[@syntaxfm]

This project makes it pretty easy to setup webhooks that can run a script in response to a received webhook: github.com/adnanh/webhook Another option is to create a github action that ssh's into a server to re-build / restart the app: github.com/appleboy/ssh-action

[@RootiferasRetroGameplay]

I'm a bit confused about the SSL part. You got a valid SSL certificate, where is the cert coming from? I didn't see any letsencrypt or any dns validation config. Is it a namecheap feature like cloudflare has?

[@syntaxfm]

It’s coming from let’s encrypt but that’s managed entirely by coolify

[@nickwoodward819]

your tache is ridiculous and awesome in equal measure. assume that's the look you're going for :D

[@emnul8583]

I'm running into issues getting Cloud-init to create the initial "cj" user. When I ssh into the server it doesn't exist in /etc/passwd. Cannot figure what the issue is here

[@yeyifeng2802]

how to deploy docker file? I don't know where to input the command.

[@SRG-Learn-Code]

I think I would use coolify locally to manage a bunch of server. That way resources are not a problem and I can have multiple instances of my app on-premise but still have a way to control them.

[@everyhandletaken]

That was my thought too, but wasn't totally sure if it needs to be always available or not. Either way, this is far more interesting than I thought it was!

[@creatzstudios8441]

How to add a custom domain that is not a subdomain of the server in which coolify is hosted?

[@TripHawkPilot]

Just add the server to the domains DNS records the same way as the main coolify site. A records @ and *

[@gomo5628]

Guys how do i implement email functionality with Coolify?

[@lucassrt007]

can we set a different domain on each project? I notice you did it with subdomains

[@stylianostsoumanis3380]

I woudl like to know that too! I think the ability to do that is essential.

[@syntaxfm]

You absolutely can. I (Scott) am running many domains on my coolify

[@deniztb4192]

which one is better for bun-sveltekit apps, coolify or caprover?? thanks🙃

[@syntaxfm]

Both!

[@rand0mtv660]

I tried Coolify long time ago in 2022 and had some issues and tried it recently few months ago and had some issues immediately after installing it. Can't remember, but I'll give it another try soon because I actually want it to succeed and I actually want to use it mostly for Preview Deployments feature. I think it's just too prone to breaking from version to version (yes yes I know it's in beta), but it also being dependent on a single person is also quite problematic in my opinion.

[@syntaxfm]

I think coolify has a bright future. Especially once it hits stable v4.

[@rand0mtv660]

@@syntaxfm we'll see. I'm looking forward to it.

[@king_sophist9041]

Does coolify need 2 CPUs or 2 “cores”? Because coolify’s website also says it can be run on a raspberry pi which makes me think they are saying it needs 2 “cores”.

[@syntaxfm]

2 cores

[@JeffPohlmeyer]

I'm only about halfway through but I'm noticing that all new projects are hosted as subdomains of your general apps.gdn domain. Are you able to deploy projects with completely different domains or do they all have to be subdomains?

[@syntaxfm]

As long as the correct DNS records are set, you can set the project domains to anything, the proxy will pickup the labels and attempt to auto-acquire a TLS certificate (using a DNS challenge). Projects will default to using the wildcard instance domain set in settings when you create them.

[@JeffPohlmeyer]

@@syntaxfm many thanks. I figured as much but just wanted to double check

[@vsnshanmuga]

After setting up domain to access coolify, Can we disable ip address from accessing coolify? For example, we access coolify using ip, but then we setup domain to access it, then how to block IP

[@syntaxfm]

This can be done with a dynamic caddy config. You can redirect requests to the IP address to a domain. I show how to do this at 25:25 - for example to set this up for an IP, specify 192.168.0.1 { redir example.com } in a dynamic config. - the http is important because you cannot have a TLS certificate for an ip address

[@LucasHenrique-lv8mc]

Cj, its possible add a different domain for each project in a same coolify instance?

[@syntaxfm]

Yep! I (Scott) host like 10 different domains on mine

[@LucasHenrique-lv8mc]

@@syntaxfm cool! can you give a tip about it? The docs haven’t any comment

[@TripHawkPilot]

Update on this?

[@chill-hot-stream]

i have a contabo server they don't have a ui for setting up firewall . I tried using ufw but seems like the port is still open and haven't managed to close it .Can you help out ?

[@syntaxfm]

I see you got help with this in the coolify discord! I didn't realize this, but docker on linux changes the iptables, so you need to add your iptable rules before any docker rules to get this working. There is a good description of how to solve this here: stackoverflow.com/a/51741599 This project tries to solve it automatically: github.com/chaifeng/ufw-docker

[@chill-hot-stream]

is there an api in coolify that i can use to resell deployments to some clients as a PAAS ?

[@syntaxfm]

Not that I know of. You might try asking in the coolify discord.

[@sevenelven]

Is this free or cripple-ware if you self host it.

[@ComputersAreRealCool]

I'm looking at moving over all my side-projects to be hosted on a VPS instead of serverless/cloud providers. I think it would be straightforward with docker-compose + caddy (all of the apps are containerised), without needing something like Coolify. But the one thing that wouldn't work is that deployment would have to be mostly manual (SSH into the server, update the version in the docker-compose file, docker-compose up). Does anyone have a good system for automatically deploying on push (on the master branch) in Github?

[@syntaxfm]

I talk about how to do this in this office hours video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHiaZ3ePitF2e9U -CJ

[@markdesign1354]

this video started simiple, then it got really complicted really fast !

[@syntaxfm]

I did my best to keep it approachable for beginners, but there are a lot of considerations to make when working with a VPS, so things can start to get complicated! If you want more foundational videos, definitely check out the earlier videos in this series: kzbin.info/aero/PLLnpHn493BHHAxTeLNUZEDLYc8uUwqGXa And also checkout my video on using Docker: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHnNiYOElM1kj6M

[@markdesign1354]

@@syntaxfm I will, Thanks !!

[@tszhong0411]

How to use Coolify with existing Traefik instance. I am struggling with this issue for few weeks. Can someone help me? 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@tszhong0411]

I figured it out. I can migrate my existing Traefik to Coolify's Traefik.

[@TheNaive]

What stack do you use to build syntax website

[@syntaxfm]

Svelte Kit + Planetscale

[@TheNaive]

@@syntaxfm don't you use cms for blog post?

[@raypixelz]

Can I disable port 22? Does Coolify use this port?

[@syntaxfm]

Port 22 is used for ssh. If you are SSHing into the server OR you are managing a secondary server with coolify, port 22 needs to remain open.

[@raypixelz]

@@syntaxfm gotcha! Thanks

[@lucassrt007]

Hetzner closed my account without warning! any other alternative?

[@syntaxfm]

I list some alternatives here: x.com/coding_garden/status/1770834001843957963

[@Alex-bc3xe]

But atually even crazier is how a single person can do so much work ... I am working like crazy maybe 12 hours a day on programming but can't reach that level of greatness and I am doing it 4 years straight no break up, it's demotivating sometimes.

[@oscarhagman8247]

Why didnt I hear about this before spending weeks setting up the infrastructure myself 😭

[@icemelt7ful]

Coolify is really annoying, I just get 404 on services with no way to debug or understand why

[@syntaxfm]

I do think coolify could do better job surfacing the logs and could provide an easier way to share those logs to get help when things go wrong. Within coolify, the server -> proxy -> logs section is a good place to find issues related to the proxy (which is typically the culprit when it comes to 404s/ 502s)

[@ahmedel-akkad6587]

how did you get a dark mode for namcheap😂😂

[@syntaxfm]

I use this extension: darkreader.org/

[@ahmedel-akkad6587]

@@syntaxfm cool thanks🙏

[@fille.imgnry]

"Zero config" 😂

[@syntaxfm]

Can certainly be zero config. I spin up things all the time with one click.

[@SenorRobinHood]

Great vid, but face and branding doesn't need to take up 30% of the screen. Way too big and compromises legibility of the important content for those of us with smaller screens.

[@moritzlaube1676]

That’s what I’ve been waiting for! Thanks CJ! And thanks @heyandras for an awesome product!

[@ai5558]

No easter egg in the video 🥲Why just why CJ ?!

[@syntaxfm]

Are you sure? 🥚

[@jkill2009]

@@syntaxfm this is devious

[@SRG-Learn-Code]

@@syntaxfm wait, I haven't been looking for those!

[@syntaxfm]

@@SRG-Learn-Code I mention it in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o33dn4mid6anmck

[@ai5558]

@@syntaxfm I rechecked by downloading the SRT (subtitle file) for the video and searched for the terms 'shirt' and 't-shirt.' However, I didn't find any matches. 😎 I even looked into exif data of not-the-droids-you-are-looking-for.webp 😂