Installation

There are several ways to run Rustrak depending on your needs. Pick the one that fits your setup.

Quick install (Docker Compose)

The fastest way to get everything running locally.

1. Create the docker-compose.yml

Create a docker-compose.yml file with the following content:


services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${POSTGRES_DB}
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ${POSTGRES_USER} -d ${POSTGRES_DB}"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    restart: unless-stopped
 
  server:
    image: abians7/rustrak-server:latest
    ports:
      - "${SERVER_PORT}:8080"
    environment:
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=8080
      - RUST_LOG=${RUST_LOG}
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://${POSTGRES_USER}:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/${POSTGRES_DB}
      - SESSION_SECRET_KEY=${SESSION_SECRET_KEY}
      - CREATE_SUPERUSER=${CREATE_SUPERUSER}
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
    restart: unless-stopped
 
  ui:
    image: abians7/rustrak-ui:latest
    ports:
      - "${UI_PORT}:3000"
    environment:
      - RUSTRAK_API_URL=${RUSTRAK_API_URL}
    depends_on:
      - server
    restart: unless-stopped
 
volumes:
  postgres_data:

What each service does:

Service	Description
`postgres`	PostgreSQL 16 database with persistent storage. Includes a healthcheck to ensure it’s ready before the server starts.
`server`	The Rustrak API server (Rust/Actix-web). Handles event ingestion and API requests. Uses ~50MB RAM.
`ui`	The Rustrak dashboard (Next.js).

2. Configure environment variables

Create a .env file with all required configuration:


# ===================
# Database (PostgreSQL)
# ===================
POSTGRES_USER=rustrak
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=rustrak
POSTGRES_DB=rustrak
 
# ===================
# Server
# ===================
SERVER_PORT=8080
RUST_LOG=info
 
# Session secret (required) - generate with: openssl rand -hex 32
SESSION_SECRET_KEY=your-64-char-hex-secret-here
 
# Admin user (required) - format: email:password
CREATE_SUPERUSER=admin@example.com:changeme123
 
# ===================
# Dashboard
# ===================
UI_PORT=3000
RUSTRAK_API_URL=http://server:8080

To generate a secure session secret:


openssl rand -hex 32

3. Start Rustrak


docker compose up -d

This starts:

PostgreSQL on port 5432
Rustrak Server on port 8080
Rustrak Dashboard on port 3000

Open http://localhost:3000 and log in with the credentials you set in CREATE_SUPERUSER.

Server only (recommended for production)

For production, you often want minimal resource usage on your server. Run only the Rustrak server and access the dashboard from your laptop or deploy it separately on Vercel.

On your server


# Pull and run just the server
docker run -d \
  --name rustrak \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -e DATABASE_URL="postgres://user:pass@db-host:5432/rustrak" \
  -e SESSION_SECRET_KEY="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" \
  -e CREATE_SUPERUSER="admin@example.com:changeme123" \
  abians7/rustrak-server:latest

The server uses ~50MB RAM and handles all error ingestion and API requests.

Access the dashboard

Option A: Self-host the dashboard


docker run -d \
  --name rustrak-ui \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -e RUSTRAK_API_URL="https://your-server.com" \
  abians7/rustrak-ui:latest

Option B: Deploy to Vercel (free)

Set RUSTRAK_API_URL to your server URL in Vercel’s environment variables.

User management

First admin user

The admin user is created automatically on first startup using the CREATE_SUPERUSER environment variable:


# In your .env file
CREATE_SUPERUSER=admin@example.com:yourpassword

The format is email:password. This only creates the user if no users exist in the database yet.

Verify the installation

Open the dashboard (localhost:3000 or your Vercel URL)
Log in with your admin credentials
You should see an empty project list

You’re ready to capture your first error.

Resource comparison

Setup	Server RAM	Server CPU	Notes
Full stack	~200MB	Low	Easiest setup
Server only	~50MB	Minimal	Dashboard runs elsewhere
Server only + Vercel	~50MB	Minimal	Zero dashboard overhead

For a 512MB VPS, the server-only option leaves plenty of room for your application and database.