Host for free on Fly.io #537

ganigeorgiev · 2022-09-18T10:06:55Z

ganigeorgiev
Sep 18, 2022
Maintainer

This was requested several times in #498, #432, #328 and others.

Note 1: There will be an official Docker image when PocketBase reach a more stable release
Note 2: I didn't spend too much time exploring all Fly.io configurations so maybe there is a better/easier way to do it.
Note 3: Fly.io has a 60s timeout for idle connections, so you may get periodically errors in the console when using the realtime service. You can ignore them, since the SDK handles the reconnect automatically (#642).

1. Create the PocketBase Dockerfile:

FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.25.8

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    ca-certificates \
    # this is needed only if you want to use scp to copy later your pb_data locally
    openssh

# download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb/

# uncomment to copy the local pb_migrations dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations

# uncomment to copy the local pb_hooks dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_hooks /pb/pb_hooks

EXPOSE 8080

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]

2. Install Flyctl

Follow the installation instructions from https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/install-flyctl/.

Run flyctl auth signup to create a Fly.io account (email or GitHub).

Run flyctl auth login to login.

The above commands will open a browser window to authenticate with your Fly account.
If you see a screen saying to enter your billing details you can ignore it (as of now Fly has both free and paid regions; more on that see below).

3. Launch (aka. machine setup)

Navigate to the directory where the Dockerfile from 1) was created.

Run flyctl launch --build-only (optionally you can specify --dockerfile if you are running from different directory).

This will prompt you a question in the terminal like:

We're about to launch your app on Fly.io. Here's what you're getting:

Organization: ABC                    (fly launch defaults to the personal org)
Name:         flydemo                (derived from your directory name)
Region:       Frankfurt, Germany     (this is the fastest region for you)
App Machines: shared-cpu-1x, 1GB RAM (most apps need about 1GB of RAM)
Postgres:     <none>                 (not requested)
Redis:        <none>                 (not requested)

? Do you want to tweak these settings before proceeding? y/N

Type y to adjust the settings to the free allowance. This will open the following page:

In the above page you need to change 2 mandatory things to enable the free plan:

Change the "Region" to one that is NOT marked with asterisk (*).
Change the "VM memory" to 256MB or 512MB depending on your free alowance (see Free allowance).

Click on the "Confirm Settings" button at the bottom and after this a fly.toml configuration file will be created in your working directory.

4. Create and mount 1GB free persistent volume

Run flyctl volumes create pb_data --size=1.

You may get a warning like:

Warning! Every volume is pinned to a specific physical host. You should create two or more volumes per application to avoid downtime. Learn more at https://fly.io/docs/reference/volumes/
? Do you still want to use the volumes feature? y/N

Type y to confirm.

And then it should prompt you to select a region - preferably choose the same region as in 3).

Once finished, open your fly.toml and add somewhere at the root level the following mounts config:

[mounts]
  destination = "/pb/pb_data"
  source = "pb_data"

Your final fly.toml should look something like this:

# fly.toml app configuration file generated for snowy-tree-8913 on 2023-07-28T20:49:19+03:00
#
# See https://fly.io/docs/reference/configuration/ for information about how to use this file.
#

app = "snowy-tree-8913"
primary_region = "ams"

[mounts]
  source = "pb_data" # name of the volume
  destination = "/pb/pb_data"

# optional if you want to change the PocketBase version
[build.args]
  PB_VERSION="0.25.8"

[http_service]
  internal_port = 8080
  force_https = true
  auto_stop_machines = false
  auto_start_machines = true
  min_machines_running = 1
  processes = ["app"]
  [http_service.concurrency]
    type = "requests"
    soft_limit = 500
    hard_limit = 550

5. Deploy

Run flyctl deploy and that's it!

To access your PocketBase dashboard navigate to https://YOUR_APP_NAME.fly.dev/_/.

To deploy new configuration/image changes, just run flyctl deploy again.

Note

The first time when you try to access the PocketBase dashboard you'll have to check your Fly Monitoring logs for the PocketBase installer page url in order to setup your superuser account (replace localhost with your Fly url). For more details why this change was introduced, you can check #5814.

Backup and downloading a copy of your `pb_data`

Fly.io will even create a daily snapshot automatically for your volume (it will be kept for 5 days) - https://fly.io/docs/reference/volumes/#snapshots-and-restores.

To download a copy of your remote pb_data directory to your local machine, you could run the following commands in 2 separate terminals:

# this will register a ssh key with your local agent (if you haven't already)
flyctl ssh issue --agent

# proxies connections to a fly VM through a Wireguard tunnel
flyctl proxy 10022:22

# run in a separate terminal to copy the pb_data directory
scp -r -P 10022 root@localhost:/pb/pb_data  /your/local/pb_data

ganigeorgiev · 2022-09-18T10:17:42Z

ganigeorgiev
Sep 18, 2022
Maintainer Author

For sending emails, the following providers have free options:

https://www.mailjet.com/
https://sendgrid.com/
https://www.sendinblue.com/
https://www.mailgun.com/
https://mailtrap.io/ (only for tests/previews)
and probably others...

9 replies

rodydavis Jul 26, 2023

I ended up using Gmail for sending emails with SMTP settings!

okabrionz Jan 31, 2024

i 'am using brevo and it works well. even i still learn how to send it automatically when users pressed register button 😂

MaxTrsD Feb 26, 2025

Somehow, on my first login I don't have the option to register the superuser, every time I try to enter or insert a superuser via the command line, I get an error or I can't log in, can anyone help me please?

lighthaus205 Mar 1, 2025

Somehow, on my first login I don't have the option to register the superuser, every time I try to enter or insert a superuser via the command line, I get an error or I can't log in, can anyone help me please?

I am having the same issue.

ganigeorgiev Mar 1, 2025
Maintainer Author

@MaxTrsD, @lighthaus205 You are both spamming 40+ participants without providing details about the encountered errors and what commands exactly did you execute and how.

In general you can find a link to the PocketBase installer page in your Fly monitoring logs right after the PocketBase server has been started (you'll have to replace the localhost part with your Fly url).

If you want to create the superuser via console command then make sure that the command is executed against the correct pb_data directory AFTER the volume is mounted (e.g. via entrypoint.sh in the Dockerfile OR externally with fly ssh after deploy) or simply create a pb_migrations file as shown in https://pocketbase.io/docs/js-migrations/#creating-initial-superuser, uncomment the related COPY instruction from your Dockerfile and redeploy.

For more details why the initial superuser creation got a little more complicated you can read in #5814.

If you need further help, please consider elaborating a little more on the specific problem or better - open a new Q&A discussion and provide clear steps what did you run and what actually doesn't work.

jonafeucht · 2022-09-18T16:27:10Z

jonafeucht
Sep 18, 2022

Awesome write! This will be an excellent resource for people getting into Pocketbase.

Are you also going to add an entry in the FAQ linking here? I think that would be a good place, instead of people combing through the discussions for a solution.

0 replies

Azgaar · 2022-09-18T16:27:24Z

Azgaar
Sep 18, 2022

Great! It would you really nice if you can also describe how can we get a data backup. Let's say access pb_data on the volume and copy it to local machine. It looks it can be done, but fly.io description is no that clear.

5 replies

ganigeorgiev Sep 18, 2022
Maintainer Author

It turn out that Fly.io will even create a daily snapshot automatically for your volume (https://fly.io/docs/reference/volumes/#snapshots-and-restores).

I've updated the above instructions to include an example how to download a local copy of the pb_data directory. There are many other options. You can even add Litestream to the docker image (or run in a new one) to copy the dir to another location. So its up to the users. Based on this comment https://community.fly.io/t/how-to-copy-files-off-a-vm/1651/11, they may even integrate scp/sftp into the flyctl in the future.

benallfree Sep 19, 2022

@gedw99 From working on https://pockethost.io I learned that the CPU architecture may be different on the target runtime environment. I think it's a more reliable plan to build the binary in the Dockerfile because then it will build for the correct environment. I'll post a comment showing how I did that.

ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022
Maintainer Author

@benallfree This is not related to the backup, but just for clarity go can cross-compile without requiring Docker by setting the GOOS and GOARCH env variables (and disabling CGO if enabled), eg:

# creating a mac build from linux
env GOOS=darwin GOARCH=amd64 CGO_ENABLED=0 go build

benallfree Sep 19, 2022

@ganigeorgiev Yes sorry my comment was for @gedw99 about replacing binaries. I thought a cross-compile would work too, have you tested that? I wasn't able to get it working that way, but I was able to get it working by building in Docker.

ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022
Maintainer Author

@benallfree

I thought a cross-compile would work too, have you tested that?

Yes, this is how the PocketBase releases are generated - https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/blob/master/.goreleaser.yaml#L9

benallfree · 2022-09-19T17:38:10Z

benallfree
Sep 19, 2022

Here's another Docker approach that builds a custom binary as part of fly deploy.

Note: In theory, you should be able to cross-compile (#537 (reply in thread)) but if you don't know the target architecture or don't want to worry about it changing, this solution will work.

1. Create a custom PocketBase build:

./pocketbase-custom
   go.mod
   pocketbase.go

// ./pocketbase.go

package main

import (
	"log"

	"github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase"
)

func main() {
    app := pocketbase.New()

    if err := app.Start(); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

// ./go.mod
module pocketbase

2 Create the Dockerfile:

FROM alpine:latest

RUN apk add -v build-base
RUN apk add -v go 
RUN apk add -v ca-certificates
RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    # this is needed only if you want to use scp to copy later your pb_data locally
    openssh

# Copy your custom PocketBase and build
COPY ./pocketbase-custom /pb
WORKDIR /pb

# Note: This will pull the latest version of pocketbase. If you are just doing 
# simple customizations and don't have a local build environment for Go, 
# leave this line in. 
# For more complex builds that include other dependencies, remove this 
# line and rely on the go.sum lockfile.
RUN go get github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase

RUN go build
WORKDIR /

EXPOSE 8080

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]

Let me know what you think! Tested and working on fly.io.

4 replies

ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022
Maintainer Author

nitpick: ARG PB_VERSION=0.7.4 will not have effect here because the PocketBase version will be always determined by the go get call (you can append to the package the tag if you want to specify a version, but usually go.sum should be part of version control and it's better to be defined there if you have custom build)

benallfree Sep 19, 2022

I caught that, thank you. Yeah, if you have a go.sum already then the go get line can and probably should be removed. The approach using go get will work for very basic extensions like custom API routes and hook event listeners, but if you start pulling in dependencies then you'll definitely want to lock it down by building locally to create a go.sum.

Edit: updated Dockerfile with this note

TylerSustare Sep 23, 2022

@benallfree This is a great little setup! I'm currently stuck adding litestream to my Dockerfile, using pocketbase as a framework like you are. Do you have any ideas how to do so? I added this issue to @bscott's solution.

benallfree Sep 24, 2022

Sorry @TylerSustare I haven’t messed with it yet but please post your results here, I’m sure many would be interested in the enhanced Docker setup.

TylerSustare · 2022-09-25T06:11:34Z

TylerSustare
Sep 25, 2022

Deploy with Litestream with PocketBase as a Framework

I just finished an example repo here https://github.com/TylerSustare/pocketbase-framework-litestream

The biggest difference is using the Dockerfile to launch litestream with our custom Go binary as the sub process.

2 replies

benallfree Sep 25, 2022

This seems really cool. One thing I noticed is that you hardcoded the download URL. Is there a reliable way to determine the architecture under which Docker will be running and select the appropriate lightstream download?

TylerSustare Sep 25, 2022

Oh that's a great question. The base image from golang:1.x will always be this architecture AFAIK. If you were to use a different base image it could be a different litestream download.

As for the answer to your actual question. We could run another script that would do it for us in a shell environment and download based on that. But I haven't investigated it. If you wanted to that would be awesome though!

Zantonius · 2022-09-25T10:05:12Z

Zantonius
Sep 25, 2022

Thanks for this guide!

When i ran:
flyctl volumes create pb_data --size=1, i had to add --region=ams to the end, just writing it here in case anyone else runs into the same need :)

2 replies

ganigeorgiev Sep 25, 2022
Maintainer Author

The flyctl volumes create command would usually show a prompt in the console and you can pick the region from there (similar to when you first ran flyctl launch).

Zantonius Sep 25, 2022

For me it didn't for some reason, so I just wanted to add the above information so that others that run into the same issue can find an solution easily.

benallfree · 2022-10-03T18:35:21Z

benallfree
Oct 3, 2022

For anyone still following this, I added a reference to this discussion at https://github.com/benallfree/awesome-pocketbase. I think it would be great to maybe start adding Dockerfiles to awesome-pocketbase, perhaps that could be a centralized place where various configurations could live.

0 replies

fjaviermoradiaz · 2022-10-05T22:28:15Z

fjaviermoradiaz
Oct 5, 2022

Hi,

Thanks for this solution, but I'm trying to add my pb_data to Dockerfile without results. This is my Dockerfile

FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.7.6

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    # this is needed only if you want to use scp to copy later your pb_data locally
    openssh

# download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb/
ADD ./pb_data /pb/pb_data


EXPOSE 8080

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]

I just add

ADD ./pb_data /pb/pb_data

I've pb_data local directory in same Dockerfile directory, but when app is deployed, always show installer view.

7 replies

ganigeorgiev Oct 6, 2022
Maintainer Author

In that case you can deploy your application with a clean state and scp your local pb_data to the remote, similar to the "Backup and downloading" section in the first post, but with reverse scp arguments order, something like (I haven't tested it):

# this will register a ssh key with your local agent (if you haven't already)
flyctl ssh issue --agent

# proxies connections to a fly VM through a Wireguard tunnel
flyctl proxy 10022:22

# run in a separate terminal to copy your pb_data directory
scp -r -P 10022 /your/local/pb_data root@localhost:/pb/pb_data

denisgurev Oct 6, 2022

I also wanted to copy my local data to the production but instead of scp I'm using rsync and it works fine for me.

fjaviermoradiaz Oct 6, 2022

this works, data is uploaded fine, but when I try to access always appear installer view

Y fill user data with same user from local and appear message that confirm this user already exist, then I try to access to login view https://app/_/#/login but always redirect to installer view

ganigeorgiev Oct 6, 2022
Maintainer Author

@fjaviermoradiaz Hm, that's strange. Maybe the application is keeping an old file descriptor of the initial database file, aka. hasn't acknowledged the new db file. Try restarting your vm with flyctl restart [APPNAME] and it should be able to pick the changes.

fjaviermoradiaz Oct 6, 2022

Thanks @ganigeorgiev, now works fine!!! after restart I've can access to login page

Thank you so much!

rajesh6161 · 2022-10-10T18:17:30Z

rajesh6161
Oct 10, 2022

Are there any other option besides fly.io because it needs credit card, and being student I don't have at all. @benallfree

23 replies

ganigeorgiev Dec 23, 2022
Maintainer Author

@TechStudent10 As mentioned previously, it is possible that fly.io has changed their requirements or has geo-restricted the region you are using.

TechStudent10 Dec 23, 2022

@TechStudent10 As mentioned previously, it is possible that fly.io has changed their requirements or has geo-restricted the region you are using.

Yes I posted the comment after quickly skimming through. I've checked again and am now using MoGenius to host.

vicontiveros00 Dec 23, 2022

@TechStudent10 @rajesh6161 As long as you're using volumes under 1GB it won't charge you anything. You're required to provide payment information when you set up a fly.io account for verification (to avoid bots and crypto dudes). Been using it for a while with a bunch of other stuff I have hosted and I've never been charged even a penny.

rajesh6161 Dec 25, 2022

@TechStudent10 As mentioned previously, it is possible that fly.io has changed their requirements or has geo-restricted the region you are using.

Yes I posted the comment after quickly skimming through. I've checked again and am now using MoGenius to host.

How did you hosted on Mogenius? can you help me out?

TechStudent10 Dec 25, 2022

@TechStudent10 As mentioned previously, it is possible that fly.io has changed their requirements or has geo-restricted the region you are using.

Yes I posted the comment after quickly skimming through. I've checked again and am now using MoGenius to host.

How did you hosted on Mogenius? can you help me out?

I didn't. Im using PocketHost now

heretolya · 2022-10-19T12:06:44Z

heretolya
Oct 19, 2022

Hi, thanks for this helpful guide ✌️ I just want to add that now you can download your database using fly CLI. You can find more information here: https://fly.io/docs/flyctl/ssh-sftp-get/. To use this feature, navigate to your project's folder, where your fly.toml is located. Then if you want to download a single file, you can use fly ssh sftp get <file-name>. I didn't find a way to download a folder using this command, but you can always use fly ssh sftp shell to start an interactive SFTP session, where you can manually select the file / folder to download by navigating your server file system.

0 replies

mgrami · 2022-11-21T06:21:48Z

mgrami
Nov 21, 2022

Hi. I can not use fly.io because of credit card. I'm trying to use render.com free web service but it fails. I don't know what's the problem. I just create a github repo with dockerfile and connected to render website. The logs says docker image is built and points to urls for admin & api s but above in dashboard says failed.

2 replies

ganigeorgiev Nov 21, 2022
Maintainer Author

@mgrami By a quick glance at their documentation, they seem to have persistent storage (Disks), so it should be possible to host PocketBase with render but I haven't tried it yet. Sometime later this week I'll consider testing it.

In the meantime, please open a new Q&A discussion with more details about your Dockerfile, the steps you've executed and the available logs.

ganigeorgiev Nov 21, 2022
Maintainer Author

@mgrami The Render free plans doesn't support persistent storage, so it is not possible to host PocketBase for free on Render. For this and other limitations you can check https://render.com/docs/free#other-limitations.

brunowilliang · 2022-11-23T12:11:30Z

brunowilliang
Nov 23, 2022

is there any tutorial for deploying on railway?

4 replies

ganigeorgiev Nov 23, 2022
Maintainer Author

No and I don't think it is possible to host on railway because, at least the last time I checked, they don't have persistent storage. You can also check #923.

brunowilliang Nov 23, 2022

@ganigeorgiev I managed to implement it in fly.io, but I couldn't change the url :/ do you know how to change it?

ganigeorgiev Nov 23, 2022
Maintainer Author

@brunowilliang No sorry, I've never used fly.io with custom domain and I'm not sure what are necessary steps, but you could try to follow their official docs - https://fly.io/docs/app-guides/custom-domains-with-fly/ and/or ask in their support forum.

brunowilliang Nov 23, 2022

@ganigeorgiev ok, i'll try this, you guys are awesome <3

vicontiveros00 · 2022-12-07T00:06:40Z

vicontiveros00
Dec 7, 2022

What if you already have a large database locally?? How can you get that onto fly.io?

11 replies

vicontiveros00 Dec 7, 2022

I've gotten the stfp thing to work on a different windows machine. Only this is how can I put my local pb_data to the VM? It says the file already exists and doesn't let me put? I'm limited to only cd, ls, get, put, and chmod.

ganigeorgiev Dec 7, 2022
Maintainer Author

@vicontiveros00 I haven't use the sftp approach so I'm not sure if there is a better way, but you can temporary rename your local file (eg. data_new.db) and later you can ssh in your vm and replace/rename it back to data.db.

Alternatively, if you managed to fix the ssh issue, rsync (or scp with directoy arg) allow overwriting the destination file during upload. But note that you'll have to restart the vm (flyctl restart) since the application will hold a file descriptor to the old file until the process is terminated.

vicontiveros00 Dec 7, 2022

Do you know of any alternatives to Fly.io? Idc if it's paid at this point I'm so frustrated doesn't seem fly cares to support Windows very well.

ganigeorgiev Dec 7, 2022
Maintainer Author

@vicontiveros00 Free services that offer vms with persistent storage are rare and I haven't really tested other options. Several users suggested https://mogenius.com/ and https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ but I haven't got the time to test them yet. You can also have a look at @benallfree's PocketHost https://pockethost.io/ (https://github.com/benallfree/pockethost).

vicontiveros00 Dec 7, 2022

Figured out how to do it, I'll mention this for any future Windows users that might run into this problem. If you run fly ssh console you're given more commands to work with so you can go ahead and navigate to pb_data and rm data.db (Be careful, this is assuming you don't need the data on the VM anymore.) Then, run fly ssh sftp shell and you can then go ahead and write your local data to the VM normally 👍

creekdrops · 2023-01-11T06:20:52Z

creekdrops
Jan 11, 2023

If anyone here is using an M1 Mac for their development, and running into issues with deployment, this is the workaround I managed to find.

# authenticate docker
flyctl auth docker

# build and tag with docker
docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64 -t registry.fly.io/your-app:tag 

# push to your app's repo in the fly registry
docker push registry.fly.io/your-app:tag

# deploy the image you just pushed
flyctl deploy -i registry.fly.io/your-app:tag

0 replies

alexchudnovsky · 2023-01-26T16:13:33Z

alexchudnovsky
Jan 26, 2023

Hi Everyone :)

I am successfully deploying to fly.io, everything works fine

However, when I try to use
e.Router.GET("/*", apis.StaticDirectoryHandler(os.DirFS("./public"), false))

Regardless what I do, I can't get it to work it always returns
{"code":404,"message":"Not Found.","data":{}} in the web browser

Has anyone had luck with this on fly.io ?

Many thanks

Cheers,
Alex

2 replies

ganigeorgiev Jan 26, 2023
Maintainer Author

@alexchudnovsky I guess you are using PocketBase as framework. In this case make sure that you've mounted/copied your public dir and that the path is correct (alternatively if you are not sure what is your working directory, you can define the full absolute path, eg. /pb/public).
If the above doesn't help, please open a new discussion with your Dockerfile and fly config (and your go initialization code if possible).

alexchudnovsky Jan 26, 2023

Thank you so much, that solved it :)

e.Router.GET("/*", apis.StaticDirectoryHandler(os.DirFS("/pb/public"), false))

Works perfect!

stephanelpaul · 2023-07-04T18:56:48Z

stephanelpaul
Jul 4, 2023

you can host it on railway now https://railway.app/changelog/2023-06-23-volumes-priority-boarding

1 reply

NECOtype Jul 5, 2023

They no longer have a free tier tho, their free starter plan is going to be replaced by “Hobby” plan

NoahMLoomis · 2023-07-12T20:13:41Z

NoahMLoomis
Jul 12, 2023

https://pockethost.io allows you to host for free (not self-hosted) until they hit version 1.0. From then on, it seems it'll be a pay-as-you-go https://pockethost.io/docs/overview/faq/

3 replies

jlopezvaldez Sep 26, 2023

I also ended up using PocketHost for my app. It was simple and had it running in less than 2 minutes!

newmizanur Oct 3, 2023

FAQ response from Pockethost: "Space has been deleted"

benallfree Oct 3, 2023

@newmizanur Moved as of v0.9.0 https://pockethost.io/docs/overview/faq/

maybetejas · 2023-08-15T18:33:03Z

maybetejas
Aug 15, 2023

Details

This was requested several times in #498, #432, #328 and others.

Note 1: There will be an official Docker image when PocketBase reach a more stable release Note 2: I didn't spend too much time exploring all Fly.io configurations so maybe there is a better/easier way to do it. Note 3: Fly.io has a 60s timeout for idle connections, so you may get periodically errors in the console when using the realtime service. You can ignore them, since the SDK handles the reconnect automatically (#642).

1. Create the PocketBase Dockerfile:
FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.17.0

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    ca-certificates \
    # this is needed only if you want to use scp to copy later your pb_data locally
    openssh

# download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb/

# uncomment to copy the local pb_migrations dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations

# uncomment to copy the local pb_hooks dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_hooks /pb/pb_hooks

EXPOSE 8080

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]
2. Install Flyctl

Follow the installation instructions from https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/install-flyctl/.

Run flyctl auth signup to create a Fly.io account (email or GitHub).

Run flyctl auth login to login.

3. Launch (aka. machine setup)

Navigate to the directory where the Dockerfile from 1) was created.

Run flyctl launch (optionally you can specify --dockerfile if you are running from different directory).

This will prompt you a couple questions like the name of your app, deployment region, etc.

Type n for the last 2 questions asking for creating a Postgresql database and whether you want to deploy directly.
? Would you like to set up a Postgresql database now? No

? Would you like to deploy now? No
The launch command will create a fly.toml configuration file in the working directory.

4. Create and mount 1GB free persistent volume

Run flyctl volumes create pb_data --size=1

It will prompt you to select a region - preferably choose the same region as in 3).

Once finished, open fly.toml and add somewhere at the root level the following mounts config:
[mounts]
  destination = "/pb/pb_data"
  source = "pb_data"
Your final fly.toml should look something like this:
# fly.toml app configuration file generated for snowy-tree-8913 on 2023-07-28T20:49:19+03:00
#
# See https://fly.io/docs/reference/configuration/ for information about how to use this file.
#

app = "snowy-tree-8913"
primary_region = "ams"

[mounts]
  source = "pb_data" # name of the volume
  destination = "/pb/pb_data"

# optional if you want to change the PocketBase version
[build.args]
  PB_VERSION="0.17.0"

[http_service]
  internal_port = 8080
  force_https = true
  auto_stop_machines = false
  auto_start_machines = true
  min_machines_running = 1
  processes = ["app"]
  [http_service.concurrency]
    type = "requests"
    soft_limit = 500
    hard_limit = 550
5. Deploy

Run flyctl deploy and that's it!

To access your PocketBase dashboard navigate to https://YOUR_APP_NAME.fly.dev/_/.

To deploy new configuration/image changes, just run flyctl deploy again.

Backup and downloading a copy of your pb_data

Fly.io will even create a daily snapshot automatically for your volume (it will be kept for 5 days) - https://fly.io/docs/reference/volumes/#snapshots-and-restores.

To download a copy of your remote pb_data directory to your local machine, you could run the following commands in 2 separate terminals:
# this will register a ssh key with your local agent (if you haven't already)
flyctl ssh issue --agent

# proxies connections to a fly VM through a Wireguard tunnel
flyctl proxy 10022:22

# run in a separate terminal to copy the pb_data directory
scp -r -P 10022 root@localhost:/pb/pb_data  /your/local/pb_data

I did this, but the things keeps shutting down for some reason, the dashboard shows "deployed" but the pocketbase db just goes down without any reason

2 replies

ganigeorgiev Aug 15, 2023
Maintainer Author

You can check the Fly Monitoring dashboard to see if there are any messages logged in the web console that could pinpoint the issue, otherwise I'm not sure how to help.

The only thing I can think of that could cause abrubt restarts is probably memory errors (OOM) since the fly VM is limited by default to only 256MB. If that's the case, you can try to:

Define GOMEMLIMIT=200MiB env variable

Enable swap.
As suggested in the above link, to enable it you can try creating a helper docker_cmd.sh shell script:

# https://fly.io/docs/rails/cookbooks/deploy/#enabling-swap
fallocate -l 512M /swapfile
chmod 0600 /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
echo 10 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
swapon /swapfile
echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory

# run the application
/pb/pocketbase serve --dir='/pb/pb_data' --http='0.0.0.0:8080'

and then replace in your Dockerfile the last CMD entrypoint with something like:

COPY docker_cmd.sh /docker_cmd.sh

CMD /docker_cmd.sh

It could be also some temporary Fly issue, I'm not sure. If you are not able to identify the culprit, you could try submitting a question in the Fly forum.

pnmcosta Aug 16, 2023

fyi, cli fly logs -a APPNAME provides more verbose details than the web dashboard, I had an issue with my entrypoint cmd and was only reported on the cli.

Stuk · 2023-09-29T23:56:51Z

Stuk
Sep 29, 2023

I'm curious what happens during a deploy, especially when a migration is applied? Looks like the default on fly.io is a rolling deploy, where a second instance is spun up alongside the first, then traffic is switched once it's ready.

If there are writes ocuring on the first instance during a migration, what will occur?

1 reply

benallfree Sep 30, 2023

I probably shouldn't be the one to answer, but I believe fly.io has a specific mention about NOT having redundant servers for deployments like pocketbase where persistent storage on volumes is needed because the volume is associated only with one machine permanently.

silenceofthewans · 2023-10-02T09:58:04Z

silenceofthewans
Oct 2, 2023

I was trying to set up CORS by appending --origins='client.pages.dev' to Dockerfile's CMD but Access-Control-Allow-Origin header wasn't being set on response (docker issue?) but I was able to set it using fly.toml:

[http_service.http_options.response.headers]
    Access-Control-Allow-Origin = "<your-client-url>"

Don't know if this is how it is supposed to be but putting this here in case anyone else runs into this.

1 reply

matevarga Mar 24, 2024

However, be aware that Fly.io only allows 512 bytes of metadata per service and fails silently if it's over 512 b, so if your app suddenly becomes unreachable on Fly.io after changing these options then it might be because of this.

Stuk · 2023-10-04T01:00:09Z

Stuk
Oct 4, 2023

From my understanding a new instance is created for a deploy. I wonder if that means there is downtime when doing a deploy as the persistent storage is switched between instances. Probably just need to give it a go if no one else has experience!

1 reply

benallfree Oct 4, 2023

I would read the fly.io docs carefully, I don't think volumes can be switched between instances. You might be able to use litestream to synchronize, but I think horizontally scaling pocketbase is very challenging.

sabikrahat · 2023-11-22T07:26:02Z

sabikrahat
Nov 22, 2023

Is there anyone who has recently deployed with fly.io version-0.1.127? Or @ganigeorgiev can you please update this resource based on the lastest flyctl v0.1.127. They have updated the whole system. After entering the flyctl launch they are also deploying the backend.
As a result, we can't add

[mounts]
  destination = "/pb/pb_data"
  source = "pb_data"

in fly.toml file.

7 replies

newmizanur Nov 22, 2023

Huh, that's a big change. I was not aware.

sabikrahat Nov 22, 2023

@ganigeorgiev can you please guide us?

einarpersson Nov 22, 2023

Maybe I'm blind, but I still don't understand what the (breaking) change is? All I see is some new options for some kind of scaling (auto_extend_*) for volumes

pnmcosta Nov 22, 2023

Seems like added feature, not replacement. I have deployed yesterday with CLI v0.1.108 will likely update this week with newer, and will report back if any issues.

ganigeorgiev Nov 22, 2023
Maintainer Author

There doesn't seem to be breaking changes (at least not such that affect the settings in this guide), but there were some changes to the flyctl interactions.

In short try to run flyctl launch --build-only to start the config launcher without auto deploy. I've updated the guide with the latest steps and attached a screenshot of the new launch configuration page.

flaviocopes · 2024-01-04T15:52:38Z

flaviocopes
Jan 4, 2024

Anyone knows how to connect to the Fly instance via .internal links? https://fly.io/docs/reference/private-networking/#fly-io-internal-addresses

Same on Railway. Both use IPv4 on external links and IPv6 on internal links

4 replies

pnmcosta Jan 4, 2024

I'm also curious to know, I may have this use case going forward. I think you may need to use a reverse proxy like nginx, but am not 100% sure.

flaviocopes Jan 8, 2024

ah interesting idea @pnmcosta got to try

flaviocopes Apr 9, 2024

Updating this since I went back to this problem I had, but using Railway. Private network is HTTP-only, and you have to set the internal port too.

So the URL to connect to PocketBase must be something like http://<internal network URL>:<port>

richardtatum Apr 23, 2024

@flaviocopes

Did you stick with this? I am having the same issue with Sveltekit and Pocketbase running on separate machines within the same application. I can establish connections between them by using the internal http://app-name.flycast address however when retrieving images the http schema causes multiple-source issues when displaying on an https address.

I can't really work out how to solve this without separating them into two fly.io applications (which I'd prefer not to do for performance reasons)

KaTaiHo · 2024-02-18T05:53:05Z

KaTaiHo
Feb 18, 2024

My app successfully deployed but when I logged in as admin none of my data was on the remote host.

# pocketbase build
FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.20.7

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    ca-certificates \
    openssh

# download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb/

COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations

COPY ./pb_data /pb/pb_data

EXPOSE 8090

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8090"]

Am I missing anything else? When I run my service via docker locally the data shows up.

1 reply

ganigeorgiev Feb 18, 2024
Maintainer Author

You pb_data will be overwritten by the mounted volume.
If you want to load your local pb_data into the remote db you can either create a migration(s) or create a backup locally from the Admin UI > Settings > Backup and then import it in the remote instance.

bogdano · 2024-05-05T23:11:08Z

bogdano
May 5, 2024

First of all, all the kudos I have go to Pocketbase-- amazing project.

I've built an app in Go using PB as a framework, and I think the instructions above need to include the additional steps necessary if using PB as a framework. I am not sure what I need to do in order to properly deploy my app-- I followed the instructions but my homepage returns {"code":404,"message":"Not Found.","data":{}}. The admin interface works fine, but it's a blank slate without any of my collections.

I created the volume 'pb_data' on fly.io, and my fly.toml is:

app = 'nps-go'
primary_region = 'sea'

[[mounts]]
  source = 'pb_data'
  destination = '/pb/pb_data'

[build]

[http_service]
  internal_port = 8080
  force_https = true
  auto_stop_machines = true
  auto_start_machines = true
  min_machines_running = 0
  processes = ['app']

[[vm]]
  memory = '512mb'
  cpu_kind = 'shared'
  cpus = 1

My Dockerfile:

FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.20.2

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    ca-certificates \
    # this is needed only if you want to use scp to copy later your pb_data locally
    openssh

# download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb/

# uncomment to copy the local pb_migrations dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations

# uncomment to copy the local pb_hooks dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_hooks /pb/pb_hooks

EXPOSE 8080

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]

My .dockerignore:

**/.env
**/build-errors.log
fly.toml

And this is my project structure:

.
├── api
│   ├── mapbox_matrix.go
│   └── parks_service.go
├── client
│   └── main.css
├── components
│   ├── base.templ
│   ├── base_templ.go
│   ├── index.templ
│   ├── index_templ.go
│   ├── parks.templ
│   ├── parks_templ.go
│   ├── park.templ
│   └── park_templ.go
├── Dockerfile
├── fly.toml
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
├── main
├── main.go
├── pb_data
│   ├── backups
│   ├── data.db
│   ├── logs.db
│   └── storage
├── pb_public
│   └── tailwind.css
├── README.md
├── tailwind.config.js
├── template
│   └── template.go
└── tmp
    └── build-errors.log

edit: I also have this in main.go:

e.Router.GET("/*", apis.StaticDirectoryHandler(os.DirFS("./pb_public"), false))

3 replies

bogdano May 6, 2024

...I'm still kind of stuck. I am using Templ and Tailwind as well. As far as Templ goes, it should be compiled into the Go binary, right? And I am assuming that the Go binary is just called main?

As far as Tailwind goes, it builds the final CSS file into /pb_public/ so I tried to copy it over in the dockerfile:

COPY ./pb_public /pb/pb_public and then changed the static dir handler to e.Router.GET("/*", apis.StaticDirectoryHandler(os.DirFS("/pb/pb_public"), false)), deleted my app and then rebuilt the dockerimage and redeployed with a new .dockerignore which ignores everything except the binary and /pb_public/:

.env
tmp/
components/
pb_data/
api/
template/
main.go
fly.toml
README.md
tailwind.config.js
go.mod
go.sum
.air.toml
.gitignore

...But I still had the same result-- clean slate admin interface with no config, and 404 on the frontend.

bogdano May 6, 2024

....Alright, I'm almost there. I was, of course, doing the completely wrong thing. Seeing as I am extending Pocketbase with Go, I should have just tried deploying a Go app to fly.io normally, relying on flyctl to create the Dockerfile for me. I had to modify the CMD command, however, from CMD ["run-app"] to CMD ["run-app", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"] in order for Pocketbase to know what to do and where to serve it.

ARG GO_VERSION=1
FROM golang:${GO_VERSION}-bookworm as builder

COPY ./pb_public/ ./usr/src/app/pb_public/

WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY go.mod go.sum ./
RUN go mod download && go mod verify
COPY . .
RUN go build -v -o /run-app .

FROM debian:bookworm

COPY --from=builder /run-app /usr/local/bin/
CMD ["run-app", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]

I also properly registered my migrations, and now my admin interface shows my database schema.

However, my last remaining problem is serving the static files:

I have a pb_public directory in the project root, next to pb_data, and I am calling it in my main package like so:

e.Router.GET("/*", apis.StaticDirectoryHandler(os.DirFS("./pb_public"), false))

Above, in the Dockerfile, I tried copying the ./pb_public directory over to the app root dir, but my tailwind.css still returns a 404 JSON response...

pnmcosta May 7, 2024

@bogdano this thread might help #2621

alexokten · 2024-05-10T06:07:01Z

alexokten
May 10, 2024

I've followed the instructions, updated the versions in the Dockerfile and uncommented the COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations line.

However, when accessing the deployed version, it always presents me with the installer screen. Is there something I'm missing or doing wrong?

Thanks

FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.22.11

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    ca-certificates \
    # this is needed only if you want to use scp to copy later your pb_data locally
    openssh

# download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb/

# uncomment to copy the local pb_migrations dir into the container
COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations

# uncomment to copy the local pb_hooks dir into the container
# COPY ./pb_hooks /pb/pb_hooks

EXPOSE 8080

# start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8080"]

# fly.toml app configuration file generated for abc on 2024-05-10T07:00:16+01:00
#
# See https://fly.io/docs/reference/configuration/ for information about how to use this file.
#

app = 'abc'
primary_region = 'lhr'

[build]

[http_service]
  internal_port = 8080
  force_https = true
  auto_stop_machines = true
  auto_start_machines = true
  min_machines_running = 0
  processes = ['app']

[[vm]]
  memory = '2gb'
  cpu_kind = 'shared'
  cpus = 1

2 replies

ganigeorgiev May 10, 2024
Maintainer Author

You don't seem to have a persistent volume mounted. See "Step 4" from the initial post.

alexokten May 10, 2024

Thank you, that was it.

newmizanur · 2024-12-28T11:04:14Z

newmizanur
Dec 28, 2024

For S3 backup, do I need to maintain the same amount of empty storage on the Fly volume?

3 replies

ganigeorgiev Dec 28, 2024
Maintainer Author

I'm not sure that I understand what you are asking.

If you are storing the backups in S3 then the backups are stored separately from your pb_data and has no relation to the mounted Fly volume or its size.

The backup size and the available free Fly volume space matters only when you want to restore your application state from a backup using the UI because in this case we have to download the backup from S3 so that the archive can be extracted. The size of the extracted archive could vary and it is difficult to say exactly how much space you need to reserve, if that's what you are asking. In general, I would recommend to try to make sure that there is at least 1.5x-3x the current used space available (but even if that's not possible you can always perform a restore by manually downloading a backup archive and mount a new volume with the extracted content in it).

newmizanur Dec 28, 2024

Hi Thank you! So the backup zip file doesn't create at the mounted Fly volume(aka pb_data), that was my query. Got it!

ganigeorgiev Dec 28, 2024
Maintainer Author

No, sorry I forgot to mention that use case too. During the backup creation (aka. upload), the new backup zip file is temporary stored on the disk inside pb_data to avoid cross-device link errors (I'll consider adding a note for it in the backups docs).

vlad-solomon · 2025-01-06T19:53:31Z

vlad-solomon
Jan 6, 2025

I'm pretty much going crazy at this point as I can't believe how many hours I've wasted on this problem that I thought would be so straight forward. I deployed my app on fly.io and created a volume. Thing is, my pb_data already has some data in it (about 1GB).

What I want to do is copy that data to the fly.io machine so I can log in. I have tried absolutely everything: all the solutions from this page, scp, sftp, ssh, even trying to use filezilla. Everything failed. I have started over and over again and I can't wrap my head around how this is giving me so much trouble.

This is all I want to do: copy the existing pb_data to the remote machine's filesystem. Please, if someone could have an answer to this I'd be so thankful.

I'm using Windows and these are my Dockerfile and fly.toml

FROM alpine:latest

ARG PB_VERSION=0.23.12

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    unzip \
    ca-certificates \
    openssh \
    # openssh is included for optional scp usage
    && mkdir -p /pb/pb_data

# Download and unzip PocketBase
ADD https://github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/releases/download/v${PB_VERSION}/pocketbase_${PB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip /tmp/pb.zip
RUN unzip /tmp/pb.zip -d /pb


# Optionally, copy migrations and hooks if you have them
# COPY ./pb_migrations /pb/pb_migrations
# COPY ./pb_hooks /pb/pb_hooks

EXPOSE 8090

# Start PocketBase
CMD ["/pb/pocketbase", "serve", "--http=0.0.0.0:8090"]

# fly.toml app configuration file generated for pb-green-shape-6244 on 2025-01-06T19:55:38+02:00
#
# See https://fly.io/docs/reference/configuration/ for information about how to use this file.
#

app = 'pb-green-shape-6244'
primary_region = 'otp'

[mounts]
  destination = "/pb/pb_data"
  source = "pb_data"

[experimental]
  allowed_public_ports = [22]

[http_service]
  internal_port = 8090
  force_https = true
  auto_stop_machines = 'off'
  auto_start_machines = true
  min_machines_running = 1
  processes = ['app']

[[vm]]
  memory = '1gb'
  cpu_kind = 'shared'
  cpus = 1

I seriously don't get it. Ask any question and I'll be sure to answer. Thank you!

3 replies

pnmcosta Jan 6, 2025

I have tried absolutely everything: all the solutions from this page, scp, sftp, ssh, even trying to use filezilla.

Do you get errors? Can't connect? If the VM is running you should at least be able to ssh or sftp and ls on a shell.

One think I notice different from my fly.toml is your use of processes = ['app'] are you running multiple processes? Are you aware of:

Every defined process runs in its own Fly Machine(s) within the app, which means they don’t compete for resources, and they can be scaled by process group.

From https://fly.io/docs/launch/processes/ ? You shouldn't need multiple processes to run PB and/or it's cron tasks.

vlad-solomon Jan 6, 2025

Yes, I think you're right about the processes = ['app'] bit. Must be some leftover I forgot to delete. I run one machine with one volume. I managed to "fix" the problem, but I detest the solution to be honest.

I archived the pb_data folder to a .zip and then unarchived the thing through ssh. I really don't like this solution as I believe there must have been an easier way to just copy a folder from my local machine to the flyio's machines.

To answer your questions. I could connect with both ssh and operate with sftp, but when I previously uploaded my data (I must have created and deleted 4 apps), while the volume was growing in size, as I could see in both the website and the shell, the pocketbase would plainly refuse to use that data. I don't know the solution to why that happened, as the configs are virtually the same. I have not changed a single line of code between initially posting my Dockerfile and fly.toml and now.

Thank you for the fast answer, and thanks for asking the questions. I would really love to try to figure this thing further, because even if its "solved" now, I really would like a better solution.

isaacR23 Mar 5, 2025

I experience a similar problem recently. Have you tried manually restart the fly machines after you uploaded your data?

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Host for free on Fly.io #537

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

ganigeorgiev Sep 18, 2022 Maintainer

1. Create the PocketBase Dockerfile:

2. Install Flyctl

3. Launch (aka. machine setup)

4. Create and mount 1GB free persistent volume

5. Deploy

Backup and downloading a copy of your pb_data

Replies: 37 comments · 117 replies

Uh oh!

ganigeorgiev Sep 18, 2022 Maintainer Author

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

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ganigeorgiev Mar 1, 2025 Maintainer Author

Uh oh!

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ganigeorgiev Sep 18, 2022 Maintainer Author

Uh oh!

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ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022 Maintainer Author

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022 Maintainer Author

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

1. Create a custom PocketBase build:

2 Create the Dockerfile:

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022 Maintainer Author

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Deploy with Litestream with PocketBase as a Framework

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

ganigeorgiev
Sep 18, 2022
Maintainer

Backup and downloading a copy of your `pb_data`

Replies: 37 comments 117 replies

ganigeorgiev
Sep 18, 2022
Maintainer Author

ganigeorgiev Mar 1, 2025
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ganigeorgiev Sep 18, 2022
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ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022
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ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022
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ganigeorgiev Sep 19, 2022
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