Skip to main content
Version: 0.3.6

Self-host overview

Cairn is built to be self-hosted. A production deployment is:

  • cairn-core — one distroless container. It serves the Connect-RPC + REST API and the embedded SvelteKit web UI, runs migrations, and is the server side of the NATS control plane.
  • Postgres 17 with TimescaleDB (streams) and PostGIS (segments).
  • NATS + JetStream — the worker control plane and async job/result bus.
  • An S3-compatible object store (MinIO, Garage, AWS S3, …) for raw blobs and photos. Optional — core runs without it, you just lose blob upload.
  • Provider workers — one container per provider you use (cairn-provider-strava, cairn-provider-garmin), each a separate process.
                +-------------------+
   web UI  ───▶ |     cairn-core    | ──▶ Postgres (Timescale + PostGIS)
   API     ───▶ |  (API + web UI)   | ──▶ S3 (blobs, photos)
                +---------+---------+
                          │ NATS + JetStream (jobs / results / tokens)
              ┌───────────┴───────────┐
              ▼                       ▼
      cairn-provider-strava     cairn-provider-garmin

Choose a path​

Docker Compose​

Pull the published images and run them together. Core embeds the web UI, so there is nothing else to serve.

docker-compose.yml (sketch)
services:
  core:
    image: ghcr.io/opencairn-org/cairn-core:v0.3.3
    env_file: .env
    ports: ["8080:8080"]
    depends_on: [postgres, nats]
  worker-strava:
    image: ghcr.io/opencairn-org/cairn-provider-strava:v0.3.2
    env_file: .env
    # one enrollment per worker, only with NATS auth-callout
    environment: { CAIRN_WORKER_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN: "${STRAVA_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN:-}" }
  worker-garmin:
    image: ghcr.io/opencairn-org/cairn-provider-garmin:v0.3.2
    env_file: .env
    environment: { CAIRN_WORKER_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN: "${GARMIN_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN:-}" }
    volumes: ["garmin-tokens:/data"]
  postgres:
    image: timescale/timescaledb-ha:pg17-ts2.27
  nats: { image: nats:2.15.1-alpine, command: ["-js"] }
  minio: { image: minio/minio, command: ["server", "/data"] }
volumes:
  garmin-tokens:

Pin the image tags to a release rather than latest, and upgrade core and the workers together; this page documents core v0.3.3 with the Strava worker v0.3.2 and the Garmin worker v0.3.2.

The Garmin worker runs as the unprivileged user cairn (uid/gid 10001) and keeps its Garmin token cache under /data. A new named volume is created with the right owner. A volume or bind mount written by an older image (which ran as root) has to be handed over once, otherwise the cached tokens cannot be read:

docker run --rm -v garmin-tokens:/data alpine chown -R 10001:10001 /data

Put a TLS-terminating reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, Traefik) in front of core, and set CAIRN_INSTANCE_TRUSTED_PROXIES to its address so client IPs are read from the forwarded headers. See Configuration for the full variable list — in particular the three required secrets and the map tile settings if you would rather not hit the public OpenStreetMap tile server from your instance.

Upgrading to 0.3.3​

  • The project moved to the opencairn-org GitHub organization. Pull the images from ghcr.io/opencairn-org/ (cairn-core, cairn-provider-strava, cairn-provider-garmin); the ghcr.io/johnnycube/ namespace keeps the tags published so far as a frozen mirror and receives no new versions. Update image pins and Renovate rules; nothing else to migrate.

Upgrading to 0.3.2​

  • Worker enrollments accept any well-formed provider type (1–48 of [a-z0-9_-]), not only strava and garmin; the admin UI suggests the built-in ones. Nothing to migrate. Account linking for a new provider still needs core support (see Other providers).

Upgrading to 0.3.1​

  • Creating a worker enrollment requires a provider. Enrollments made before 0.3.1 have none; core refuses them at connect and the admin list marks them re-enroll required. Create new ones (see Providers).
  • Core answers NATS auth-callout requests only with CAIRN_NATS_AUTH_CALLOUT=true and CAIRN_NATS_WORKER_ACCOUNT set; follow the auth-callout setup. Without NATS auth nothing changes.
  • With the auth-callout, run Strava v0.3.1 and Garmin v0.3.1: both enroll with CAIRN_WORKER_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN alone. The placeholder nkey user in nats.conf is only needed for Strava v0.3.0 and earlier, and the Garmin worker no longer needs a static NATS user.

Upgrading to 0.3.0​

  • Configuration is read only from CAIRN_-prefixed variables. Unprefixed host variables (URL, USERNAME, PASSWORD, SESSION_SECRET, …) no longer fill Cairn settings; rename any you relied on.
  • An empty CAIRN_DATABASE_URL, CAIRN_AUTH_SESSION_SECRET or CAIRN_AUTH_MASTER_ENCRYPTION_KEY now fails startup. Run cairn config help to see every variable with its default.
  • Under NATS auth, upgrade core first: the worker permission template that auth-callout grants now matches the job subjects and JetStream API calls the workers make (see Providers). Workers under NATS without auth are unaffected.
  • The Garmin worker image no longer runs as root; see the volume note above.
  • Connect-RPC requests are capped at 4 MiB per message and upload bodies are capped (see Request limits).