xprem-quickstart

name	xprem-quickstart
description	Stand up a working xprem server in minutes. Use when the user wants a first Railway or local Docker+Postgres deploy, dashboard login, or the first admin account. Not for Helm, S3/CDN, Observe, or production hardening.

xprem-quickstart

Before you start

Read the live docs. Do not invent image tags, env vars, ports, or commands.

1. Query the always-on xprem-docs MCP (https://mercure-technologies.gitbook.io/xprem/~gitbook/mcp), or
2. Fetch Quickstart.

xprem is a self-hosted Expo OTA updates server. It is not affiliated with Expo. Prefer eoas over EAS Update.

When to use

• First-time "get a server running"
• Railway 2-click template
• Local Docker + Postgres
• Opening the dashboard and seeding the first admin

Out of scope here: Helm, S3/CDN, Observe, Enterprise RBAC/SSO, production topology. Those belong in the Installation guide.

Railway (2-click)

The Railway template provisions PostgreSQL and an S3-compatible bucket. The only values the user sets are ADMIN_EMAIL and ADMIN_PASSWORD (they secure the dashboard).

Use the Deploy on Railway button on the live quickstart page (do not invent the template URL).

After deploy, open /dashboard on the Railway hostname:

https://your-app.up.railway.app/dashboard

Sign in with that email and password, then continue from "Create your app" (quickstart local step 5 / Railway "step 7"). App creation, certificate, eoas init, and publish are xprem-configure-expo and xprem-publish.

Local Docker + Postgres

Prerequisites from the live page: Docker, and an Expo project using expo-updates if they will publish afterwards.

1. Generate secrets

openssl rand -base64 32   # JWT_SECRET
openssl rand -base64 32   # DB_KEYS_MASTER_KEY_B64

2. Start Postgres

Official docs still use a Docker network named eoo:

docker network create eoo;
docker run -d --name eoo-db --network eoo \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=expo_open_ota \
  postgres:16;

No host port is published, so this will not collide with a local Postgres on 5432. The server reaches the DB as eoo-db on that network.

3. Start the server

Image: ghcr.io/mercuretechnologies/xprem:latest

Copy the exact docker run from the live quickstart. The documented shape is:

• --network eoo -p 3000:3000
• BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000
• DB_URL=postgres://postgres:secret@eoo-db:5432/expo_open_ota?sslmode=disable — DB_URL is what selects the control plane; the server runs migrations on boot
• DB_KEYS_MASTER_KEY_B64 and JWT_SECRET from step 1
• STORAGE_MODE=local, LOCAL_BUCKET_BASE_PATH=/updates, CACHE_MODE=local
• USE_DASHBOARD=true
• ADMIN_EMAIL / ADMIN_PASSWORD
• volume $(pwd)/updates:/updates

Look for this log line:

⚙️  [CONTROL] Initializing Control Plane (DB Mode)..

Health check:

curl http://localhost:3000/hc

4. Dashboard and first admin

Open http://localhost:3000/dashboard and log in with the ADMIN_EMAIL / ADMIN_PASSWORD you set.

That pair seeds the first admin account into Postgres on boot. After that the two variables are never read again.

Next

Creating an app, downloading certs/certificate.pem, npx eoas init, and publishing are xprem-configure-expo and xprem-publish.

Teardown (from the live quickstart):

docker rm -f eoo-db && docker network rm eoo