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Make sure your Google Cloud Platform account has the necessary permissions to create a VM instance.
1

Create a VM instance

Create a VM instance with the appropriate resources. For this guide, we will use the recommended e2-standard-4 instance.
Read our Resourcing guide for more details.
  • Give your instance a descriptive name like onyx-prod
  • Select the Debian GNU/Linux 12 boot disk
  • Select the e2-standard-4 machine type
  • Select Allow HTTPS traffic in the Firewall section
  • Configure storage following the Resourcing Guide
Create VM InstanceInstance SettingsFirewall Settings
2

Create the instance

Click Create and then view your instance details.
Save the External IP of the instance!
3

Point domain to the instance

If you don’t have a domain, buy one from a DNS provider like GoDaddy or just skip HTTPS for now.
To point our domain to the new instance, we need to add an A and CNAME record to our DNS provider.The A record should be the subdomain that you would like to use for the Onyx instance like prod.The CNAME record should be the same name with the www. in front resulting in www.prod pointing to the full domain like prod.onyx.app.DNS A Record ConfigurationDNS CNAME Record Configuration
4

Install Onyx requirements

Onyx requires git, docker, and docker compose.To install these on Debian GNU/Linux 12, run the following:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
If using CentOS, Red Hat Linux, or similar, run the following:
sudo yum update -y

sudo yum install docker -y
sudo service docker start

sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/latest/download/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

sudo yum install git
5

Install and Configure Onyx

To install Onyx, we’ll need to clone the repo and set the necessary environment variables.
git clone https://github.com/onyx-dot-app/onyx.git

cd onyx/deployment/docker_compose
cp env.prod.template .env
cp env.nginx.template .env.nginx
Fill out the .env and .env.nginx files.
.env
WEB_DOMAIN=<YOUR_DOMAIN>  # Something like "onyx.app"

# If your email is something like "chris@onyx.app", then this should be "onyx.app"
# This prevents people outside your company from creating an account
VALID_EMAIL_DOMAINS=<YOUR_COMPANIES_EMAIL_DOMAIN>

# See our auth guides for options here
AUTH_TYPE=
.env.nginx
DOMAIN=<YOUR_DOMAIN>  # Something like "onyx.app"
6

Launch Onyx

Running the init-letsencrypt.sh script will get us a SSL certificate from letsencrypt and launch the Onyx stack.
./init-letsencrypt.sh
You will hit an error if you fail the letsencrypt workflow more than 5 times. You will need to wait 72 hours or request a new domain.
If you are skipping the HTTPS setup, start Onyx manually:
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -p onyx-stack up -d --build --force-recreate
Give Onyx a few minutes to start up.You can monitor the progress with docker logs onyx-stack-api_server-1 -f.
You can access Onyx from the instance Public IPv4 or from the domain you set up earlier!

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Next Steps

Configure Authentication

Set up authentication for your Onyx deployment with OAuth, OIDC, or SAML.

More Onyx Configuration Options

Learn about all available configuration options for your Onyx deployment.