DDEV n8n Addon

This addon sets up a n8n instance for your DDEV project. n8n is a free and open fair-code licensed node based Workflow Automation Tool.

Installation

To install the addon in your existing DDEV project for DDEV v1.23.5 or above run

ddev add-on get netz98/ddev-n8n

For earlier versions of DDEV run

ddev get netz98/ddev-n8n

Then restart your project

ddev restart

Usage

After installation, you can access the n8n instance by visiting https://<yourname>.ddev.site:5678 and using the username and password you set.

Run ddev describe to list your project’s services and their URLs.

Configuration

Docker

To modify the build of the used n8n image for the container there are dotenv variables available.

N8N_TAG - The used n8n image tag. Default is latest.
N8N_TIMEZONE - The timezone of the n8n container. Default is Europe/Berlin.
N8N_BASIC_AUTH_ACTIVE - Enable basic authentication. Default is false.
N8N_BASIC_AUTH_USER - The basic authentication username. Default is n8n.
N8N_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD - The basic authentication password. Default is n8n.
N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY - The encryption key for sensitive data. Default is n8n.

Use the ddev dotenv command to set these variables.

ddev dotenv set .ddev/.env.n8n --n8n-tag=1.50.0

n8n Settings

Settings are in general defined in the file .ddev/docker-compose.n8n.yaml via environment variables.

A list of all available environment variables can be found in the reference here: https://docs.n8n.io/hosting/environment-variables/environment-variables/

The timezone is set to “Europe/Berlin”. Why? Because we are from Germany. Change the environment variable GENERIC_TIMEZONE to your timezone.

Database

Standard SQLite

The n8n service uses the standard SQLite database. The SQLite database file will be created as file .ddev/n8n/data/.n8n/database.sqlite during the n8n container startup.

Logging

n8n logs are directed to the container’s stdout. You can view the logs with ddev logs -s n8n.

Security

The n8n service access can be protected with basic authentication. It’s disabled by default.

You can enable it by changing the variable N8N_BASIC_AUTH_ACTIVE in .ddev/docker-compose.n8n.yaml to true. The username and password can be configured in the same file.