tranquil-pds/docs/install-debian.md

Tranquil PDS Production Installation on Debian

This guide covers installing Tranquil PDS on Debian 13.

Prerequisites

• A VPS with at least 2GB RAM
• Disk space for blobs (depends on usage; plan for ~1GB per active user as a baseline)
• A domain name pointing to your server's IP
• A wildcard TLS certificate for *.pds.example.com (user handles are served as subdomains)
• Root or sudo access

System Setup

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install -y curl git build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev

Install Rust

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y
source ~/.cargo/env
rustup default stable

This installs the latest stable Rust.

Install postgres

apt install -y postgresql postgresql-contrib
systemctl enable postgresql
systemctl start postgresql
sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE USER tranquil_pds WITH PASSWORD 'your-secure-password';"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE pds OWNER tranquil_pds;"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE pds TO tranquil_pds;"

Create Blob Storage Directories

mkdir -p /var/lib/tranquil/blobs /var/lib/tranquil/backups

We'll set ownership after creating the service user.

Install deno (for frontend build)

curl -fsSL https://deno.land/install.sh | sh
export PATH="$HOME/.deno/bin:$PATH"
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.deno/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc

Clone and Build Tranquil PDS

cd /opt
git clone https://tangled.org/tranquil.farm/tranquil-pds tranquil-pds
cd tranquil-pds
cd frontend
deno task build
cd ..
cargo build --release

Install sqlx-cli and Run Migrations

cargo install sqlx-cli --no-default-features --features postgres
export DATABASE_URL="postgres://tranquil_pds:your-secure-password@localhost:5432/pds"
sqlx migrate run

Configure Tranquil PDS

mkdir -p /etc/tranquil-pds
cp /opt/tranquil-pds/.env.example /etc/tranquil-pds/tranquil-pds.env
chmod 600 /etc/tranquil-pds/tranquil-pds.env

Edit /etc/tranquil-pds/tranquil-pds.env and fill in your values. Generate secrets with:

openssl rand -base64 48

Install Frontend Files

mkdir -p /var/www/tranquil-pds
cp -r /opt/tranquil-pds/frontend/dist/* /var/www/tranquil-pds/
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/tranquil-pds

Create Systemd Service

useradd -r -s /sbin/nologin tranquil-pds
chown -R tranquil-pds:tranquil-pds /var/lib/tranquil
cp /opt/tranquil-pds/target/release/tranquil-pds /usr/local/bin/

cat > /etc/systemd/system/tranquil-pds.service << 'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Tranquil PDS - AT Protocol PDS
After=network.target postgresql.service
[Service]
Type=simple
User=tranquil-pds
Group=tranquil-pds
EnvironmentFile=/etc/tranquil-pds/tranquil-pds.env
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/tranquil-pds
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
ProtectSystem=strict
ProtectHome=true
PrivateTmp=true
ReadWritePaths=/var/lib/tranquil
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable tranquil-pds
systemctl start tranquil-pds

Install and Configure nginx

apt install -y nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx

cat > /etc/nginx/sites-available/tranquil-pds << 'EOF'
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name pds.example.com *.pds.example.com;

    location /.well-known/acme-challenge/ {
        root /var/www/acme;
    }

    location / {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    listen [::]:443 ssl;
    http2 on;
    server_name pds.example.com *.pds.example.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/pds.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/pds.example.com/privkey.pem;

    client_max_body_size 10G;

    root /var/www/tranquil-pds;

    location /xrpc/ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_read_timeout 86400;
        proxy_send_timeout 86400;
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_request_buffering off;
    }

    location = /oauth/client-metadata.json {
        root /var/www/tranquil-pds;
        default_type application/json;
        sub_filter_once off;
        sub_filter_types application/json;
        sub_filter '__PDS_HOSTNAME__' $host;
    }

    location /oauth/ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_read_timeout 300;
        proxy_send_timeout 300;
    }

    location /.well-known/ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

    location /webhook/ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

    location = /metrics {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    location = /health {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    location = /robots.txt {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    location = /logo {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }

    location ~ ^/u/[^/]+/did\.json$ {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

    location /assets/ {
        expires 1y;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
        try_files $uri =404;
    }

    location /app/ {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }

    location = / {
        try_files /homepage.html /index.html;
    }

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }
}
EOF

ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-available/tranquil-pds /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
rm -f /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
mkdir -p /var/www/acme
nginx -t
systemctl reload nginx

Obtain Wildcard SSL Certificate

User handles are served as subdomains (eg., alice.pds.example.com), so you need a wildcard certificate.

Wildcard certs require DNS-01 validation. If your DNS provider has a certbot plugin:

apt install -y python3-certbot-dns-cloudflare
certbot certonly --dns-cloudflare \
  --dns-cloudflare-credentials /etc/cloudflare.ini \
  -d pds.example.com -d '*.pds.example.com'

For manual DNS validation (works with any provider):

certbot certonly --manual --preferred-challenges dns \
  -d pds.example.com -d '*.pds.example.com'

Follow the prompts to add TXT records to your DNS. Note: manual mode doesn't auto-renew.

After obtaining the cert, reload nginx:

systemctl reload nginx

Configure Firewall

apt install -y ufw
ufw allow ssh
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Verify Installation

systemctl status tranquil-pds
curl -s https://pds.example.com/xrpc/_health | jq
curl -s https://pds.example.com/.well-known/atproto-did

Maintenance

View logs:

journalctl -u tranquil-pds -f

Update Tranquil PDS:

cd /opt/tranquil-pds
git pull
cd frontend && deno task build && cd ..
cargo build --release
systemctl stop tranquil-pds
cp target/release/tranquil-pds /usr/local/bin/
cp -r frontend/dist/* /var/www/tranquil-pds/
DATABASE_URL="postgres://tranquil_pds:your-secure-password@localhost:5432/pds" sqlx migrate run
systemctl start tranquil-pds

Backup database:

sudo -u postgres pg_dump pds > /var/backups/pds-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql

Custom Homepage

Drop a homepage.html in /var/www/tranquil-pds/ and it becomes your landing page. Account dashboard is at /app/ so you won't break anything.

cat > /var/www/tranquil-pds/homepage.html << 'EOF'
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome to my PDS</title>
    <style>
        body { font-family: system-ui; max-width: 600px; margin: 100px auto; padding: 20px; }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Welcome to my secret PDS</h1>
    <p>This is a <a href="https://atproto.com">AT Protocol</a> Personal Data Server.</p>
    <p><a href="/app/">Sign in</a> or learn more at <a href="https://bsky.social">Bluesky</a>.</p>
</body>
</html>
EOF