Hey DEV community! 👋
I'm a DevOps Engineer obsessed with automation, cloud efficiency, and squeezing every drop out of free tiers. Recently, I deployed n8n, the powerful open-source workflow automation tool, on a GCP e2-micro instance (aka Free Tier heaven) — and it’s running securely, persistently, and flawlessly.
Let me show you how I did it — step-by-step, script-included, and cloud-cost-friendly. 💸☁️
💡 Why n8n?
If Zapier and Node-RED had a baby, it would be n8n. You can automate everything — from APIs to Slack workflows — and run it self-hosted for full control and zero SaaS limits.
🧰 Stack & Setup
- 🧱 Google Cloud Platform Free Tier (e2-micro VM)
- 🐳 Docker + Docker Compose
- 🔐 Basic Auth + Secured SSH
- 📁 Persistent storage via Docker volumes
- ⚙️ Automated install via shell script
🔧 Full Guide on Medium
I documented everything — provisioning the VM, opening the right ports, installing Docker, configuring .env, securing the VM, and even automating it all via a deploy script.
👉 Read the full tutorial here:
🖥️ TL;DR — The Highlights
✅ Create an Ubuntu 22.04 e2-micro instance
✅ Install Docker + Compose
✅ Setup .env with Basic Auth
✅ Mount persistent volume
✅ Open only ports 22 and 5678
✅ Secure SSH (no root login, key-based access only)
✅ Hit your instance on http://:5678 and start building!
🧪 Bonus: One-Command Deploy Script
Want it automated? I built a deploy script that:
- Installs Docker & Compose
- Sets up environment variables
- Builds your docker-compose.yml
- Starts the n8n container — ready to go!
Just run:
chmod +x n8n-deploy-gcp.sh
./n8n-deploy-gcp.sh
And boom 💥, you’ve got a self-hosted automation engine for free.
🔒 Security Reminder
Please don’t forget to:
- Use strong Basic Auth credentials
- Restrict open ports in your GCP firewall
- Disable password-based SSH login Secure automation is happy automation. 😄
🤝 Let’s Connect
If you:
- ❤️ n8n
- 💻 Love DevOps
- 🧠 Automate all the things
Let’s chat! Drop your feedback, questions, or improvements in the comments.
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