Self-Hosting SmartDeploy on EC2

This guide covers deploying SmartDeploy itself (the dashboard + WebSocket worker) on an AWS EC2 instance using the provided scripts.

Prerequisites

• An Ubuntu 22.04+ EC2 instance (t3.small recommended; t3.micro works with swap).
• Security group allowing inbound ports: 22 (SSH), 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS), 3000 (app, optional for direct access), 4001 (WebSocket, optional).
• A domain name pointed at the instance's public IP (if you want SSL).
• Your .env file fully configured (see the main README and .env.example).

1. SSH in and run the deploy script

ssh ubuntu@<your-ec2-ip>

# Clone and deploy in one step
git clone https://github.com/anirudh-makuluri/smart-deploy.git /opt/smartdeploy
cd /opt/smartdeploy

# Copy your env file
nano .env   # paste your values, save

# Run the deploy script
chmod +x scripts/*.sh
./scripts/deploy.sh

deploy.sh will:

1. Install Docker (if not present).
2. Clone / update the repo to /opt/smartdeploy.
3. Check for a .env file (exits if missing).
4. Build Docker images and start containers via docker compose.
5. Configure Nginx as a reverse proxy (port 80 -> app:3000, /ws -> websocket:4001).
6. Print the public URL.

2. Low-memory instances (t3.micro / 1 GB RAM)

The Next.js Docker build needs ~1.5-2 GB RAM. On 1 GB instances, add swap first:

sudo ./scripts/setup-swap.sh

This creates a 2 GB swap file. After that, deploy.sh and update.sh will work normally. Builds will be slower due to swap I/O.

You can also tune the Node heap via .env:

NODE_MAX_OLD_SPACE_SIZE=2048

On larger instances (t3.small+), use 4096 for faster builds.

3. Set up SSL (Let's Encrypt)

After the initial deploy, set up HTTPS:

sudo ./scripts/setup-ssl.sh

The script will prompt for your domain and email, then:

1. Install Certbot.
2. Obtain a certificate from Let's Encrypt.
3. Configure Nginx for HTTPS with automatic HTTP -> HTTPS redirect.

Prerequisites:

• DNS A record pointing your domain to the instance's public IP.
• Ports 80 and 443 open in the security group.

After SSL is set up, update .env:

NEXTAUTH_URL=https://yourdomain.com
NEXT_PUBLIC_WS_URL=wss://yourdomain.com/ws

Then restart:

docker compose restart

Certificate renewal

Let's Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days. Certbot sets up automatic renewal. You can verify:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Or manually renew:

sudo ./scripts/renew-ssl.sh

For more details, see scripts/README-SSL.md.

4. Updating to the latest version

cd /opt/smartdeploy
./scripts/update.sh

This pulls the latest code from main, rebuilds Docker images, and restarts containers with minimal downtime.

update-main.sh is a lighter variant that skips git pull and just rebuilds + restarts (useful when you've already pulled or made local changes).

Helper scripts

All scripts assume the app lives at /opt/smartdeploy.

Docker Compose overview

docker-compose.yml defines two services:

The websocket service mounts /var/run/docker.sock so it can build Docker images on the host.

Both services read .env via env_file and also have explicit environment entries for every variable the app uses at runtime.

Troubleshooting