Nhost

Replace <vm-ip> with the public IP of your VM. The default login user is azureuser.

Connect to the VM.

ssh azureuser@<vm-ip>

Check that Docker and the Nhost service are running.

sudo systemctl is-active docker.service nhost.service docker --version && docker compose version

You should see active printed twice, the Docker Engine version, and the Docker Compose v2 plugin version.

List the containers in the Compose stack.

cd /opt/nhost && sudo docker compose ps

The core containers, nhost-postgres-1, nhost-graphql-1, nhost-auth-1, nhost-storage-1, nhost-minio-1, nhost-dashboard-1 and nhost-mailhog-1, run in the Up state. Where a health check is defined, they also show healthy.

The nhost-functions-1 container restarts until you deploy a functions project. This is expected on a fresh appliance (see Step 10).

All stateful Nhost data lives on a dedicated data disk mounted at /var/lib/nhost. Docker's data root is relocated there. Check the mount.

findmnt /var/lib/nhost df -h /var/lib/nhost docker info --format '{{.DockerRootDir}}'

findmnt shows the device backing /var/lib/nhost, df confirms the 40 GiB volume, and Docker's data root reports as /var/lib/nhost/docker.

The Hasura GraphQL Engine, the auth service and the storage service each expose a health or version endpoint.

A unique set of secrets is created for your instance on its first boot and written to a root-only file. Check the endpoints, then read the file.

curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' http://localhost:8080/healthz
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' http://localhost:4000/healthz
curl -s http://localhost:4001/v1/version; echo
sudo cat /root/nhost-credentials.txt

The three checks return 200, and the credentials file lists the dashboard URL, the Hasura console URL, the Hasura admin secret and the backend endpoint URLs for the GraphQL, auth, storage and functions services. Store the admin secret somewhere safe.

Browse to http://<vm-ip>/ to open the Nhost management dashboard. It shows the local project, with sections for the database, the GraphQL API, Hasura, auth, storage, serverless functions and settings.

Open the Database section of the dashboard to create tables, add columns and browse rows in the managed PostgreSQL database.

Every table you create is instantly exposed over the GraphQL API.

Open the GraphQL section of the dashboard to explore the schema and run queries and mutations against your data. The built-in API explorer is already authenticated with your project's admin secret.

You can also query the API directly. The admin secret from Step 5 authorises full access.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8080/v1/graphql \
  -H "x-hasura-admin-secret: <HASURA_ADMIN_SECRET>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"query { __typename }"}'; echo

A {"data":{"__typename":"query_root"}} response confirms that the GraphQL API is up and the admin secret authenticates.

The Hasura GraphQL Engine ships its own console on port 8080. Browse to http://<vm-ip>:8080/console, and enter the Hasura admin secret from Step 5. You can then manage the data model, permissions, relationships, event triggers and remote schemas.

The auth service signs users up and issues JWTs. This command creates a user and returns an access token.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:4000/v1/signup/email-password \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email":"demo@example.com","password":"Sup3r-Secret-123"}'; echo

The storage service serves files over an S3-compatible API on port 4001. Check that it is serving.

curl -s http://localhost:4001/v1/version; echo

The serverless functions runtime is published on port 4002 and runs the JavaScript and TypeScript functions you deploy.

On a fresh appliance, the functions container has no project to serve and restarts until you deploy one. To activate it, add a functions/ directory with your handlers (and a lock file for npm, yarn or pnpm) under /opt/nhost, then recreate the stack.

The nhost.service systemd unit manages the whole stack. It wraps Docker Compose under /opt/nhost.

sudo systemctl status nhost.service --no-pager | head -n 6

To inspect the logs for a specific service, run this command.

cd /opt/nhost && sudo docker compose logs --tail 20 graphql