Chapter 3 — Infrastructure & Deployment

Category: Infrastructure & Deployment Reading time: 5 minutes

VM Setup

The system runs on a Proxmox-hosted Linux VM accessible at n8n-automation.patchoutech.lab on the local network. The VM is not exposed to the internet.

Docker Compose

Two containers orchestrated via Docker Compose v2:

services:
  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n:latest
    container_name: n8n
    environment:
      - DB_TYPE=postgresdb
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_HOST=db
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_PORT=5432
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_DATABASE=n8n
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_USER=n8n
      - DB_POSTGRESDB_PASSWORD=n8n
      - N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false
      - NODES_EXCLUDE=[]
      - NODE_FUNCTION_ALLOW_BUILTIN=fs,path
    ports:
      - "5678:5678"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/home/node/.n8n
      - ./watch:/home/node/watch
      - ./output:/home/node/output
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: postgres:17
    container_name: n8n_db
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_DB=n8n
      - POSTGRES_USER=n8n
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=n8n
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  db_data:

Critical Environment Variables

Variable	Value	Why
`N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false`	Required	n8n runs over HTTP (no TLS on local network)
`NODES_EXCLUDE=[]`	Required	Re-enables Local File Trigger, disabled by default since n8n 2.0
`NODE_FUNCTION_ALLOW_BUILTIN=fs,path`	Required	Allows Code nodes to read/write files via `require('fs')`

Volume Mounts

Host Path	Container Path	Purpose
`./data`	`/home/node/.n8n`	n8n runtime state, credentials, encryption key
`./watch`	`/home/node/watch`	Incoming files (chat logs, transcripts)
`./output`	`/home/node/output`	Generated output files organized by date

Version Pinning

PostgreSQL 17

PostgreSQL is pinned to v17, not latest. When PostgreSQL 18 was released, it changed the data directory layout, breaking existing volumes. Always pin to the major version matching your existing data.

n8n Latest

n8n uses latest tag. n8n handles database migrations automatically on startup, so upgrades are generally safe. The command to upgrade:

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

Network Architecture

Mac Mini ──── SSH/rsync ────► VM (n8n-automation)
                                │
                                ├── :5678 (n8n UI, local only)
                                │
                                ├──► api.fathom.ai (HTTPS)
                                └──► openrouter.ai (HTTPS)

The VM makes outbound HTTPS calls to two external APIs. No inbound connections from the internet are required.

SSH Configuration

The Workstation connects to the VM via SSH key authentication. The key has a passphrase stored in the OS Keychain:

ssh-add --apple-use-keychain ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

The SSH host is configured in ~/.ssh/config on the Workstation as n8n-automation.