VM Supabase Deployment

Deploying Your Supabase Instance on a Virtual Machine

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What You’ll Get

Once deployed, your VM will run a full Supabase stack locally via Docker.

Service	Purpose	Default Port
Postgres	Database	5432
Kong Gateway (API)	REST + Auth endpoint	8000
Studio	Web UI dashboard	3000
Storage	File uploads	5000

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Step 1 — Prepare Your VM Environment

Recommended Specs

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (or Debian 12)

• 2 vCPUs, 2 GB RAM minimum

• 10 GB+ disk

• Docker + Docker Compose installed

Install dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose git
sudo systemctl enable --now docker

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Step 2 — Clone the Supabase Docker Setup

git clone https://github.com/supabase/supabase
cd supabase/docker

This directory contains Docker Compose files for all Supabase services.

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Step 3 — Configure Your Environment

Copy and edit the example environment file:

cp .env.example .env

Open .env and minimally edit:

SUPABASE_URL=http://<YOUR_VM_IP>
SUPABASE_PUBLIC_URL=http://<YOUR_VM_IP>
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres
JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand -base64 48)
ANON_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32)
SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32)

Replace <YOUR_VM_IP> with your VM’s public IP or domain name (e.g. http://203.0.113.10 or https://supabase.yourdomain.com).

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Step 4 — Start the Stack

Launch Supabase services:

docker compose up -d

Check that all services are healthy:

docker compose ps

If successful, you’ll see containers like:

supabase-kong (API) → 0.0.0.0:8000
supabase-studio (Dashboard) → 3000/tcp
supabase-db (Postgres) → 5432/tcp

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Step 5 — Import Your Existing Data

If you previously exported your Supabase Cloud project to a dump file (supabase_backup.sql):

# copy the dump to your VM
scp supabase_backup.sql user@<YOUR_VM_IP>:~

# restore inside the VM
ssh user@<YOUR_VM_IP>
docker exec -i supabase-db psql -U postgres -d postgres < supabase_backup.sql

Your local database now contains all tables and data from your old cloud project.

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Step 6 — Connect Your Frontend

In your web project (HTML/JS):

const supabase = window.supabase.createClient(
  'http://<YOUR_VM_IP>:8000',   // your VM’s Supabase API URL
  'YOUR_ANON_KEY'               // from the VM’s .env file
)

✅ Your frontend now communicates directly with your VM’s Supabase instance

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Step 7 — Verify via Supabase Studio

Access the dashboard at:

http://<YOUR_VM_IP>:3000

Log in using your local keys from .env.

You’ll see your tables, users, and storage buckets — just like in Supabase Cloud.

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Enterprise Deployment Support

If you’d like to deploy your Supabase environment to a virtual machine (VM) or your own production server, we can help you set that up securely.

For enterprise deployment assistance, please contact our team here:

Our enterprise support can guide you through:

• Deploying Supabase on your own infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.)

• Setting up backups, SSL, and domain routing

• Scaling from local to production-grade environments

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References

• Supabase Self-Hosting Guide