Deployment Guide for Next.js Application useing Docker on Hostinger VPS

Host your Next.js 15+ App Router project on Hostinger VPS with NGINX, Docker, and HTTPS. Secure and production-ready.

Prerequisites

Hostinger VPS (Ubuntu 22.04+)
Domain (e.g. domain-name.com)
GitHub repo with your Next.js project
Docker & Docker Compose installed

Step 1: Connect & Update Server

ssh root@your-vps-ip 
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install Required Software

# Docker & Compose 
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | bash apt install docker-compose-plugin -y  

# Git 
sudo apt install git -y  

# Firewall 
ufw allow OpenSSH 
ufw allow 80,443/tcp 
ufw enable

Step 3: DNS Configuration

At your domain provider, configure A/AAAA records:

Type	Name	Value
A	@	VPS IPv4
A	www	VPS IPv4
AAAA	@	VPS IPv6
AAAA	www	VPS IPv6

Note: IPv6 (AAAA records) is optional — only add them if your VPS provider supports and assigns an IPv6 address.

Step 4: Setup Reverse Proxy (Traefik, One-time)

Traefik will handle SSL (Let’s Encrypt) & routing for all apps.

mkdir -p /srv/apps/traefik/dynamic cd /srv/apps/traefik

traefik.yml

entryPoints:
  web:
    address: ":80"
    http:
      redirections:
        entryPoint:
          to: websecure
          scheme: https

  websecure:
    address: ":443"

providers:
  docker:
    endpoint: "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"
    exposedByDefault: false
    network: proxy
    watch: true

certificatesResolvers:
  letsencrypt:
    acme:
      email: tariqul@tariqul.dev
      storage: /acme.json
      httpChallenge:
        entryPoint: web

api:
  dashboard: true

log:
  level: INFO

accessLog:
  format: json

docker-compose.yml

networks:
  proxy:
    external: true
  web:
    external: true

services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:v3.3
    container_name: traefik
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./traefik.yml:/traefik.yml:ro
      - ./acme.json:/acme.json
    networks:
      - proxy
      - web
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.docker.network=proxy"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.rule=Host(`traefik.naturalsefa.com`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.entrypoints=websecure"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.tls=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.service=api@internal"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-auth.basicauth.users=admin:$$2y$$05$$mdANwdxZ8xVrhRpHFlTlS.M1uD95F1S5CiX2snEa9YQHIwlJW9vg."
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-redirect.redirectregex.regex=^/$"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-redirect.redirectregex.replacement=/dashboard/"
      - "traefik.http.middlewares.dashboard-redirect.redirectregex.permanent=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.dashboard.middlewares=dashboard-redirect,dashboard-auth"

Initialize:

touch acme.json && chmod 600 acme.json docker network create proxy docker compose up -d

Step 5: Clone Next.js Project

mkdir -p ~/srv/apps && cd ~/srv/apps git clone git@github.com:yourusername/your-next-app.git cd your-next-app

If private repo:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]" cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Add this key to GitHub > Settings > Deploy Keys.

Set environment variables:

nano .env

Step 6: Create Dockerfile for Next.js

Dockerfile

# ---- Build stage ---- FROM node:20-alpine AS builder WORKDIR /app  # build-time flag (default 1 to skip DB calls) ARG SKIP_DB=1 ENV SKIP_DB=$SKIP_DB ENV NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1  COPY package*.json ./ RUN npm ci COPY . . RUN npm run build  # ---- Production runtime ---- FROM node:20-alpine WORKDIR /app  ENV NODE_ENV=production ENV NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 ENV PORT=3000 ENV HOSTNAME=0.0.0.0  COPY --from=builder /app/public ./public COPY --from=builder /app/.next ./.next COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules COPY --from=builder /app/package*.json ./  EXPOSE 3000 CMD ["npm", "start"]

next.config.ts:

import type { NextConfig } from "next";  const nextConfig: NextConfig = {   output: "standalone", };  export default nextConfig;

.dockerignore:

node_modules .next .git Dockerfile docker-compose.yml README.md

Step 7: Create Docker Compose for the App