Automation

MariaDB

MIT

Deploy Huginn on a VPS

A self-hosted Zapier/IFTTT alternative — agents that monitor sites, parse feeds, scrape data, post to APIs, and chain workflows. Production setup with rbenv Ruby, MariaDB, Nginx + Let's Encrypt, and systemd.

At a Glance

Project	Huginn (Ruby on Rails + DelayedJob)
License	MIT
Recommended Plan	Cloud VPS 2 GB / 2 vCPU (sweet spot for 20–100 agents)
OS	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Database	MariaDB (PostgreSQL also supported)
Estimated Setup Time	60–90 minutes (Ruby compile takes most of it)

Sizing

Personal, <20 agents: 1 vCPU / 1 GB / 20 GB SSD (add 1 GB swap)
Personal, 20–100 agents: 2 vCPU / 2 GB / 30 GB SSD (sweet spot)
Power user, 100–500 agents: 2–4 vCPU / 4 GB / 50 GB SSD
Heavy scraping: 4+ vCPU / 8+ GB / 80+ GB NVMe (consider Postgres)

Each extra ~300 MB of RAM lets you run one more DelayedJob worker. Event history grows over time — busy instances accumulate gigabytes per month.

Initial Server Preparation

Update + baseline + admin user

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install -y curl wget git vim ufw fail2ban htop

adduser sysadmin
usermod -aG sudo sysadmin
mkdir -p /home/sysadmin/.ssh
cp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/sysadmin/.ssh/
chown -R sysadmin:sysadmin /home/sysadmin/.ssh
chmod 700 /home/sysadmin/.ssh
chmod 600 /home/sysadmin/.ssh/authorized_keys

Lock down SSH (/etc/ssh/sshd_config)

PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
PubkeyAuthentication yes

Apply + firewall + hostname/timezone

sshd -t && systemctl reload ssh

sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing
sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw enable

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname huginn.example.com
sudo timedatectl set-timezone UTC

Add swap on 2 GB tiers (cheap insurance during gem compilation)

sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
echo 'vm.swappiness=10' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

UTC is strongly recommended — scheduled agents don't care about local time, and DST transitions only confuse logs.

Install System Dependencies

The official Huginn install guide targets older Ubuntu releases. Working list for 24.04 (noble):

Build deps for Ruby + native gems

sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential git zlib1g-dev libyaml-dev libssl-dev \
  libgdbm-dev libgdbm-compat-dev libreadline-dev libncurses-dev \
  libffi-dev curl openssh-server libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev \
  libcurl4-openssl-dev libicu-dev logrotate pkg-config cmake \
  graphviz libpq-dev libjemalloc-dev autoconf bison

Notes vs older guides: libgdbm-compat-dev is now required separately, python-docutils is removed (skip it), libxslt-dev → libxslt1-dev, libncurses5-dev → libncurses-dev.

Node.js LTS for Rails asset compilation

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs
sudo npm install -g yarn

Install + Tune MariaDB

Install + secure

sudo apt install -y mariadb-server mariadb-client libmariadb-dev
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Set a strong root password, switch to unix_socket auth: No, remove anonymous users / test DB / disallow remote root: Yes.

Create the Huginn DB user (in mysql shell)

CREATE USER 'huginn'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'CHANGE_THIS_TO_A_STRONG_PASSWORD';
SET default_storage_engine=INNODB;
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER,
      LOCK TABLES, REFERENCES ON `huginn_production`.* TO 'huginn'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/60-huginn.cnf (tune for 2 GB VPS)

[mysqld]
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 256M
innodb_log_file_size = 64M
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2
innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT
max_connections = 50
table_open_cache = 400
tmp_table_size = 32M
max_heap_table_size = 32M
query_cache_type = 0
query_cache_size = 0
slow_query_log = 1
slow_query_log_file = /var/log/mysql/slow.log
long_query_time = 2

Apply

sudo systemctl restart mariadb

On a 4 GB VPS bump innodb_buffer_pool_size to 1G.

Create the huginn System User

Unprivileged user

sudo adduser --disabled-login --gecos 'Huginn' huginn

Everything from this point that touches Huginn code, gems, or services runs as this user.

Install Ruby with rbenv

Huginn master needs Ruby ≥3.2.4. rbenv lets you pin the exact patch and avoid system-Ruby conflicts.

As the huginn user

sudo -i -u huginn

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
cd ~/.rbenv && src/configure && make -C src
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

rbenv install 3.2.6
rbenv global 3.2.6
ruby -v

gem install bundler --no-document
rbenv rehash

Compile takes 5–15 minutes. Fails on libssl? Missing libssl-dev. OOMs? You skipped swap.

Clone + Configure Huginn

Clone + checkout latest stable tag

cd /home/huginn
git clone https://github.com/huginn/huginn.git huginn
cd huginn

git tag --sort=-creatordate | head -5
git checkout <latest_tag>

Copy + lock the .env file

cp .env.example .env
chmod 0600 .env
editor .env

Walk top to bottom; the values that matter:

Critical .env values

# Generate fresh: ruby -rsecurerandom -e 'puts SecureRandom.hex(64)'
APP_SECRET_TOKEN=<paste-output>

DOMAIN=huginn.example.com           # no protocol, no trailing slash

DATABASE_ADAPTER=mysql2
DATABASE_NAME=huginn_production
DATABASE_USERNAME=huginn
DATABASE_PASSWORD='your-mariadb-password'
DATABASE_ENCODING=utf8mb4

RAILS_ENV=production
FORCE_SSL=true

INVITATION_CODE=something-only-you-know  # or 'false' to disable

# SMTP (use Postmark/Mailgun/SendGrid — VPS IPs have poor sender reputation)
SMTP_DOMAIN=example.com
SMTP_SERVER=smtp.mailgun.org
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_USER_NAME=postmaster@mg.example.com
SMTP_PASSWORD=your-smtp-password
SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain
SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true
EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=huginn@example.com

Bundle Install + Migrate

Install gems (10–30 min on a small VPS)

bundle config set --local deployment 'true'
bundle config set --local without 'development test'
bundle install -j$(nproc)
# 1 GB VPS? bundle install -j1

Initialize DB + assets

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:create db:migrate db:seed
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

Seed creates admin user admin / password. Change immediately on first login.

systemd Units (Web + Worker)

Exit huginn user, then back as sysadmin sudo

exit

/etc/systemd/system/huginn-web.service

[Unit]
Description=Huginn web server
After=network.target mariadb.service
Requires=mariadb.service

[Service]
Type=simple
User=huginn
Group=huginn
WorkingDirectory=/home/huginn/huginn
Environment=RAILS_ENV=production
Environment=PATH=/home/huginn/.rbenv/shims:/home/huginn/.rbenv/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
ExecStart=/home/huginn/.rbenv/shims/bundle exec unicorn -c config/unicorn.rb -E production
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
StandardOutput=append:/var/log/huginn/web.log
StandardError=append:/var/log/huginn/web.error.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

/etc/systemd/system/huginn-worker.service

[Unit]
Description=Huginn background worker
After=network.target mariadb.service huginn-web.service
Requires=mariadb.service

[Service]
Type=simple
User=huginn
Group=huginn
WorkingDirectory=/home/huginn/huginn
Environment=RAILS_ENV=production
Environment=PATH=/home/huginn/.rbenv/shims:/home/huginn/.rbenv/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
ExecStart=/home/huginn/.rbenv/shims/bundle exec rails runner bin/threaded.rb
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
StandardOutput=append:/var/log/huginn/worker.log
StandardError=append:/var/log/huginn/worker.error.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Logs + enable

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/huginn
sudo chown huginn:huginn /var/log/huginn

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now huginn-web huginn-worker
sudo systemctl status huginn-web huginn-worker

/etc/logrotate.d/huginn

/var/log/huginn/*.log {
    daily
    missingok
    rotate 14
    compress
    delaycompress
    notifempty
    create 0640 huginn huginn
    sharedscripts
    postrotate
        systemctl reload huginn-web.service > /dev/null 2>&1 || true
    endscript
}

Nginx + Let's Encrypt

Install + site

sudo apt install -y nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx

/etc/nginx/sites-available/huginn

upstream huginn {
    server unix:/home/huginn/huginn/tmp/sockets/unicorn.socket fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name huginn.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 20M;
    keepalive_timeout 5;

    root /home/huginn/huginn/public;

    location / {
        try_files $uri @huginn;
    }

    location @huginn {
        proxy_pass http://huginn;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_redirect off;
    }
}

Enable + cert

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/huginn /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d huginn.example.com \
  --redirect --agree-tos -m you@example.com --no-eff-email

Browse to https://huginn.example.com, log in as admin / password, then change the password.

Backups

Three things matter: the MariaDB DB (every agent + event), .env (the APP_SECRET_TOKEN ties together encrypted credentials), and /home/huginn/huginn/Gemfile.lock (so a restore reproduces the same gem versions).

/usr/local/sbin/huginn-backup.sh

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
DEST=/var/backups/huginn
mkdir -p "$DEST"
TS=$(date +%F)

mysqldump -u huginn -p'YOUR_DB_PASSWORD' --single-transaction \
  huginn_production | gzip > "$DEST/db-$TS.sql.gz"

cp /home/huginn/huginn/.env "$DEST/env-$TS"
cp /home/huginn/huginn/Gemfile.lock "$DEST/Gemfile.lock-$TS"

find "$DEST" -type f -mtime +14 -delete

Schedule + ship off-host

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/huginn-backup.sh
sudo chmod 700 /var/backups/huginn
echo "30 3 * * * root /usr/local/sbin/huginn-backup.sh" \
  | sudo tee /etc/cron.d/huginn-backup

Layer restic on top to push to B2/Wasabi/another VPS. Test the restore before relying on it.

Common Issues

Ruby compile fails on libssl: missing libssl-dev — install and re-run rbenv install
Bundle install OOMs: add swap, or use bundle install -j1
500 error after first login: assets not precompiled, or FORCE_SSL=true set without Nginx in front yet
Workers idle, no scheduled agents firing: huginn-worker not running — journalctl -u huginn-worker -n 100
SMTP errors with Mailgun "550 5.7.1": sender domain not verified — finish DKIM/SPF in Mailgun first

More Deployment Guides•n8n Guide•Activepieces Guide