Dokploy is a lightweight, open-source alternative to platforms like Heroku and Railway — and running it on Gozunga Cloud gives you full control over your deployments without the monthly SaaS markup. Here's how to get it running in minutes.

1. Overview
2. Create Your Gozunga Account - First, Sign Up to access your dashboard.
3. Launch an Instance - You can start with a low-end instance and resize as you grow.
4. Secure Your Instance - Configure security groups to allow Dokploy traffic.
5. (Optional) Verify SSH - Test your SSH connection to the server.
6. First Login - Complete the initial setup and configure your domain.

1. Overview

This guide walks you through installing and configuring Dokploy on Gozunga Cloud. Dokploy is an open-source deployment platform that lets you deploy applications, manage databases, and handle SSL certificates — all from a clean web interface running on your own server.

We use Gozunga Cloud's cloud-init feature to install Dokploy automatically at server creation time, so your instance boots up ready to go. By default, Gozunga Cloud instances block all inbound traffic — we'll walk through the security group configuration in Step 4.

2. Create your Gozunga Account

If you haven't yet done so, Create an Account. You can sign up for free and get $100 in credits to get started! This generous credit allows you to explore our platform and host your Dokploy instance without any upfront costs. Perfect for developers and teams looking to self-host their deployment pipelines with complete control over their infrastructure.

Why choose Gozunga Cloud for your Dokploy setup?

• High-performance infrastructure with 99.99% uptime SLA
• 24/7 expert support to help you every step of the way
• Flexible scaling - start small and grow as needed

3. Launch an instance

We need to create a server to host our Dokploy instance. You can start with a low-end instance and resize later as your workload grows.

💡 Pro Tip: Our st.small1 instance type is a great starting point for Dokploy and costs just a few dollars per month. You can always resize later from the portal.

• Login to Gozunga's Cloud Management Portal, and create a Project to house your virtual machine instance.
• From the Server pane, click Create a Cloud Server
• Select your favorite Linux distribution (ex Ubuntu 24.04) and instance size (st.small1)
• Choose your network settings (ex. Public Network → Internet), and the appropriate SSH key.
• Under Cloud configuration, in order to take care of Dokploy installation at install time using Linux' cloud-init, we will include the following configuration:

#cloud-config
package_update: true
package_upgrade: true
packages:
  - curl
runcmd:
  - curl -sSL https://dokploy.com/install.sh | sh
final_message: "Dokploy installation has been completed. The system is now ready to use after $UPTIME seconds."

• Then choose a name for the server (ex. 'dokploy') and click Create Server

The server installation, package updates and Dokploy installation will take 3-5 minutes to complete. Take note of the server's IP address — we'll need it in a moment.

4. Secure your Instance

While we're waiting for the server to provision and Dokploy to install, we'll configure security groups to allow the right traffic to reach our server.

Before we get started, you may want to review our knowledge base guide Using Security Groups to understand this critical security component of our infrastructure platform.

First, we will create security group rules to allow secure inbound connectivity to Dokploy for management:

• Choose Networking → Security Groups
• Create a new security group called Dokploy Management
• Click in to the security group and add the following rules:

Ports for Secure Dokploy Management

Dokploy Web Management Interface - TCP/3000

• Dokploy's management interface runs on port 3000 by default. This is unencrypted HTTP initially, so restrict access to your own IP address until you've set up a domain and SSL.

(Optional) SSH - TCP/22

(Optional) PING

Exposed Ports for Standard Production Operations

HTTP - TCP/80

• Required for Let's Encrypt SSL certificate issuance and HTTP traffic (which Dokploy will redirect to HTTPS).

HTTPS - TCP/443

• Once you've configured a domain and SSL, Dokploy and all your deployed apps will be served over HTTPS.

Creating the security groups does not automatically apply them to the server. Be sure to follow the instructions below about applying this Security Group to the virtual machine instance we created.

• Once these rules are in place, you must apply the security group to the virtual machine instance we created.
• Select the Security Groups tab from a Virtual Machine instance
• Choose + Add Security Group and select the Dokploy Management security group we created
• Finally, click Add Security Group to apply the security group to the virtual machine instance.

Advanced Method: Using OpenStack CLI

If you prefer to use the command line, you can create the security groups and rules using OpenStack CLI:

# Create the Dokploy Management security group
openstack security group create --description "Security group for Dokploy management access" dokploy-management

# Add rules (replace YOUR_IP_ADDRESS with your actual IP, e.g. 24.68.123.45/32)

# Dokploy Web Management Interface - TCP/3000 (restricted to your IP)
openstack security group rule create --protocol tcp --dst-port 3000:3000 --remote-ip YOUR_IP_ADDRESS dokploy-management

# Optional: SSH - TCP/22
openstack security group rule create --protocol tcp --dst-port 22:22 --remote-ip YOUR_IP_ADDRESS dokploy-management

# Optional: PING (ICMP)
openstack security group rule create --protocol icmp --remote-ip YOUR_IP_ADDRESS dokploy-management

# HTTP - TCP/80 (public access)
openstack security group rule create --protocol tcp --dst-port 80:80 --remote-ip 0.0.0.0/0 dokploy-management

# HTTPS - TCP/443 (public access)
openstack security group rule create --protocol tcp --dst-port 443:443 --remote-ip 0.0.0.0/0 dokploy-management

# Apply the security group to your server instance
# Replace YOUR_SERVER_NAME with your actual server name
openstack server add security group YOUR_SERVER_NAME dokploy-management

See Using Security Groups for more information.

5. (Optional) Verify SSH

The installation process we're using here doesn't require you to SSH to the server, but if you're like me, you'll want to log in anyway — here is how.

• Using the SSH key you selected when creating the virtual machine, SSH to your new server:

# If necessary on MacOS or Linux
chmod 600 /path/to/.pem

# SSH to your new server using the key
ssh -i /path/to/.pem ubuntu@[YOUR_SERVER_IP]

# Once in, you can verify Dokploy is running
sudo docker ps | grep dokploy

# You should see the dokploy container running
ubuntu:~$

6. First Login

With the server provisioned and security groups applied, it's time to log in to Dokploy.

• Visit http://[ip-address]:3000 in your browser — you'll be greeted with the Dokploy setup screen
• Create your admin account with a strong password
• Once logged in, navigate to Settings → Server and enter your server's domain name (e.g. dokploy.yourdomain.com)
• Point your DNS A record for that domain to your server's IP address
• Back in Dokploy Settings, click Enable HTTPS — Dokploy will automatically obtain a Let's Encrypt certificate
• After SSL is provisioned, you can update your browser to https://dokploy.yourdomain.com and the management port 3000 is no longer needed for day-to-day use

💡 Pro Tip: Once HTTPS is configured and working on your domain, go back to your Gozunga security group and remove or restrict the TCP/3000 rule. Your Dokploy management UI will be served exclusively over HTTPS/443 going forward.

That's it! You now have a fully self-hosted deployment platform ready to go.

After installation, you can:

• Deploy applications from Git repositories (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)
• Spin up databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB)
• Configure SSL certificates automatically via Let's Encrypt
• Set up deployment hooks and CI/CD pipelines
• Monitor application logs and resource usage in real time

For more information about Dokploy features and capabilities, visit the official Dokploy documentation.

Ready to deploy? Get $100 in free credits and start hosting your applications on Gozunga Cloud today!