Install the Control Plane

The control plane is the central server that manages your Rabtly network. You only need one — it runs on any Linux server.

A cheap $5/month VPS (1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM) is more than enough for dozens of nodes.

Option A: Docker (easiest)

Create a Docker Compose file


# docker-compose.yml
services:
  rabtly:
    image: ghcr.io/rabtly/rabtly:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"   # API
      - "3000:3000"   # Dashboard
    environment:
      RABTLY_ADMIN_EMAIL: you@example.com
      RABTLY_ADMIN_PASS: change-me-please
      RABTLY_JWT_SECRET: a-long-random-string
    volumes:
      - rabtly-data:/var/lib/rabtly
 
volumes:
  rabtly-data:

Start it


docker compose up -d

Open the dashboard

Go to http://your-server:3000 and sign in with the email and password you set above.

Option B: Binary

Download the server binary


curl -Lo rabtly-server https://github.com/rabtly/rabtly/releases/latest/download/rabtly-server-linux-amd64
chmod +x rabtly-server
sudo mv rabtly-server /usr/local/bin/

Start the control plane


RABTLY_ADMIN_EMAIL=you@example.com \
RABTLY_ADMIN_PASS=change-me-please \
RABTLY_JWT_SECRET=a-long-random-string \
rabtly-server

Option C: With PostgreSQL (recommended for teams)

By default, Rabtly stores data in a local JSON file. For teams, using PostgreSQL is more reliable.


DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@localhost/rabtly \
RABTLY_ADMIN_EMAIL=you@example.com \
RABTLY_ADMIN_PASS=change-me-please \
rabtly-server

Rabtly runs its own database migrations automatically on startup.

Open your firewall

Make sure these ports are accessible from your devices:

Port	Protocol	Purpose
8080	TCP	API (nodes connect here)
3000	TCP	Dashboard (browser access)

For production, put a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy) in front to add HTTPS. Caddy does this automatically with a single line config.