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.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
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.