infisical-self-host
Deploy and operate Infisical self-hosted instances with Docker, Docker Compose, and Kubernetes. Covers architecture, environment variables, ENCRYPTION_KEY management, PostgreSQL setup, Redis configuration (including the required noeviction policy), production hardening, FIPS 140-3 compliance, scalin
By infisical · 471 installs
npx skills add infisical/ai-skills --skill infisical-self-host
Source repository · Upstream listing
Infisical Self Hosted Deployment
This skill guides you through deploying, configuring, and operating Infisical in self hosted environments. Whether you are running Infisical on Docker, Docker Compose, or Kubernetes, this resource covers essential setup, security hardening, scaling, and maintenance patterns.
Not this skill
If the user wants... Use
To deploy the Kubernetes Operator (also a Helm chart, different thing) infisical kubernetes operator
To reach a private resource from Infisical infisical gateway
To configure SSO or SCIM on their instance infisical sso
Roles, permissions, audit log streams infisical access control
To use Infisical once it is running infisical setup
An external KMS or HSM backing the root key infisical kms
The Helm confusion is worth pre empting: the secrets operator chart installs the operator ;
this skill covers the chart that installs the platform . Both come from the same Cloudsmith repo.
Guiding Principles
1. ENCRYPTION KEY is Critical : This key encrypts all secrets at rest and cannot be recovered if lost . Back it up and rotate it carefully following Infisical's rotation procedures.
Standard deployments: a random 16 byte hex string — openssl rand hex 16
FIPS enabled deployments: a 256 bit base64 key instead — openssl rand base64 32
2. AUTH SECRET is Required : This key is used for session and JWT signing. It is 32 bytes (base64), generated with openssl rand base64 32 , and must be stable across restarts.
3. Database Requirements : PostgreSQL is the only supported database. Use 14+ for compatibility; Infisical is extensively tested on 16. Always backup your database before upgrading Infisical. Schema migrations run automatically on boot (since v0.111.0 postgres).
4. Redis is a hard dependency, not just a cache : Beyond caching it holds the background job queue, distributed locks, cross instance coordination state, and rate limit counters. The instance will not start unless one of REDIS URL , REDIS SENTINEL HOSTS , or REDIS CLUSTER HOSTS is set , and a running instance is degraded while Redis is unreachable.
Use Redis 6.x or 7.x; at least 6.2 is advised
All three topologies are supported: standalone, Sentinel, and Cluster
Active passive is recommended. Active active has not been tested and may behave in undocumented ways
Set the eviction policy to noeviction . This is required, not a tuning suggestion — evicting keys under memory pressure would silently drop queued work
Enable persistence (AOF, or at minimum RDB snapshots) and back Redis up. Pending secret rotations, syncs, and webhook deliveries live there; a Redis that comes back empty loses them
Give Redis the same availability target as the app instances — an unreplicated Redis is a single point of failure for the whole deployment
5. Stateless Architecture : Infisical is stateless. Scale horizontally by adding more replicas. All state lives in PostgreSQL and Redis. Each instance needs no more than 2–4 CPU cores and 4–8 GB memory; add containers rather than growing one.
6. FIPS Compliance : Infisical is compliant with FIPS 140 3 . Deploy the separate infisical/infisical fips Docker image (an Enterprise only image, not a tag on the standard repo) and set FIPS ENABLED=true . Remember the ENCRYPTION KEY format changes to 256 bit base64 in FIPS mode.
Quick Start
Docker Standalone : Pull infisical/infisical:<version , set environment variables, run on port 8080.
Docker Compose : Use docker compose.prod.yml from the repository with PostgreSQL and Redis services.
Kubernetes : Deploy via Helm chart infisical standalone postgres from Cloudsmith registry with optional managed databases.
Reference Guides
[Environment Variables](./references/environment variables.md)
Complete reference for all configuration environment variables, including:
Required keys (ENCRYPTION KEY, AUTH SECRET, database, Redis)
Database and replication setup
Redis with Sentinel support
SMTP configuration
OAuth/SSO providers
FIPS and telemetry settings
Security options
[Docker Deployment](./references/docker deployment.md)
Docker and Docker Compose deployment patterns, including:
Standalone container setup
Docker Compose production stack
Image variants (standard and FIPS)
Production hardening with security capabilities and read only filesystems
Health checks
[Kubernetes Deployment](./references/kubernetes deployment.md)
Kubernetes and Helm deployment guide, including:
Helm chart installation and configuration
Secret creation and management
Optional PostgreSQL and Redis (Bitnami charts)
Pod security and RBAC
Networking policies and Ingress/TLS
[Scaling and High Availability](./references/scaling and ha.md)
Production scaling patterns and HA architecture, including:
Horizontal scaling (adding replicas)
Sizing guidelines for Infisical, PostgreSQL, and Redis
Database read replicas
Redis Sentinel for HA
Backup and upgrade procedures
License server firewall rules