N8N Admin Dashboard

A small admin dashboard for managing an n8n instance. It provides:

• Monitor n8n container status and uptime
• Update n8n Docker image version
• Create and upload data backups to S3
• One-click deploy of the admin dashboard itself

Tech stack

• Server: Node.js (Express)
• Frontend: React (Vite + Tailwind)
• Shell scripts: backup, update version, deploy

Requirements

• Node.js >= 22
• Docker + Docker Compose
• AWS CLI configured (for backups to S3)
• Git (for self-deploy from repo)

Quick start (development)

# install deps
npm install

# run server and Vite client
npm run dev

• Server: http://localhost:3333
• Client (Vite): http://localhost:5173

Environment configuration

The server reads environment variables from your shell or a .env in the project root. The backup and update scripts read .env from your n8n data/stack folder.

Server (project root) variables:

# .env (project root)
PORT=3333                       # optional, default 3333
DATA_FOLDER=/path/to/n8n-stack  # folder containing n8n .env and docker-compose.yml
REPO_FOLDER=/absolute/path/to/this/repo  # required for Deploy Updates action

n8n stack/data folder variables (used by backup + update):

# ${DATA_FOLDER}/.env (required for backup and version update)
# for backups
BACKUP_PREFIX=n8n-prod
S3_BUCKET=your-bucket
S3_REGION=us-east-1
# optional
S3_FOLDER=backups/n8n

# for version updates; this will be edited in-place by the script
N8N_DOCKER_VERSION=1.64.0

AWS CLI must be configured on the host running backups:

aws configure

Running in production

Install the service

cd /root
git clone [email protected]:herculift/automation.git
cd automation
npm install
npm run build
node --inspect server.js >> server.log & (OR npm run start)

Alternatively, use the in-app “Deploy Updates” button (see below) which runs the scripts/deploy.sh script:

• Pulls latest origin/<branch> (default main)
• Installs deps and builds
• Restarts the Node server (systemd service configured)

Configure systemd service for node app

1. Create a file at /etc/systemd/system/n8n-manager.service with the following content:

   [Unit]
   Description=N8N Admin Dashboard

   [Service]
   ExecStart=/root/.nvm/versions/node/v23.11.0/bin/node server.js >> server.log
   Restart=always
   User=root
   Environment=PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
   Environment=NODE_ENV=production
   WorkingDirectory=/root/automation

   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

2. Enable and Start the Service.

systemctl enable n8n-manager
systemctl start n8n-manager
systemctl status n8n-manager

3. Troubleshooting if you have any error running the service.

journalctl -u n8n-manager # Error tracking
systemctl daemon-reload # Reloading daemon config

EXPOSE the port for web service

sudo ufw allow 3333

Configure caddy to make the webservice accessible from internet

1. Create a domain for the webservice
2. Point the domain to the same server as N8N.
3. Update /root/n8n-docker-caddy/caddy_config/Caddyfile by adding the following line:

webservice.buink.com {
    reverse_proxy {HOST_IP}:3333
}

4. Restart docker to apply changes

docker compose down
docker compose up -d

In case there is nginx server configured as reverse proxy, you need to update the nginx configuration

Long-running Data Backup endpoint (timeouts)

The POST /api/runBackupData endpoint can take a few minutes. If you are behind a reverse proxy (Caddy or Nginx), increase the proxy timeouts for this path so the connection is not closed early.

Caddy (inside your site block):

# Allow the backup endpoint to run for ~3 minutes
route /api/runBackupData* {
  reverse_proxy {HOST_IP}:3333 {
    transport http {
      read_timeout 190s
      write_timeout 190s
    }
  }
}

Nginx (inside your server config):

# Increase timeouts for the backup endpoint only
location /api/runBackupData {
  proxy_pass http://{HOST_IP}:3333;
  proxy_read_timeout 190s;
  proxy_send_timeout 190s;
}

After updating, reload your proxy:

• Caddy: caddy reload (or restart your Caddy container)
• Nginx: nginx -s reload (or systemctl reload nginx)

Access the webservice

Open the browser and hit webservice.buink.com. Follow the screen guide to upgrade n8n version.

Features

Status

• Endpoint: GET /api/status
• Returns { success: true, status: "running" | "stopped", version, uptime, lastDeployTime }
• Internally parses docker ps and finds docker.n8n.io image line

Version Manager

• Lists available Docker tags from Docker Hub
  • Endpoint: GET /api/getAvailableN8NVersions
• Update version:
  • Endpoint: POST /api/updateN8NVersion
  • Body: { "version": "TAG" }
  • Effect:
    • Edits ${DATA_FOLDER}/.env replacing N8N_DOCKER_VERSION
    • Stops container docker-caddy-n8n-x
    • Runs docker compose up -d

Important:

• Make sure ${DATA_FOLDER} points to your n8n deployment folder that contains .env and docker-compose.yml
• Confirm your reverse proxy/container name docker-caddy-n8n-x matches your setup

Data Backup

• Endpoint: POST /api/runBackupData
• Runs scripts/backup_n8n_data.sh which:
  • Creates tarball from n8n_data Docker volume
  • Uploads to s3://$S3_BUCKET/$S3_FOLDER/$BACKUP_PREFIX-YYYYmmddHHMMSS.tar.gz
• Requires ${DATA_FOLDER}/.env to include BACKUP_PREFIX, S3_BUCKET, S3_REGION
• Requires AWS CLI credentials present in ~/.aws/credentials

Deploy Updates (self-deploy)

• Endpoint: POST /api/deployUpdates
• Requires REPO_FOLDER to be set
• Script scripts/deploy.sh:
  • git fetch --all --prune
  • git checkout <branch> (default main)
  • git pull --rebase --autostash origin <branch>
  • npm ci or npm install
  • npm run build
  • Restart node server.js in background

Scripts (manual usage)

# update n8n version (edits ${DATA_FOLDER}/.env and restarts compose)
bash scripts/update_n8n_version.sh <VERSION> [DATA_FOLDER]

# create and upload backup to S3
bash scripts/backup_n8n_data.sh [DATA_FOLDER]

# deploy this dashboard from repo path and optional branch (default main)
bash scripts/deploy.sh <REPO_PATH> [BRANCH]

Troubleshooting

• Backups failing:
  • Ensure ~/.aws/credentials exists and S3_BUCKET, S3_REGION, BACKUP_PREFIX set in ${DATA_FOLDER}/.env
  • Check /tmp/n8n_backup and the upload step
• Version update not taking effect:
  • Confirm N8N_DOCKER_VERSION is present in ${DATA_FOLDER}/.env
  • Confirm your compose project and container names match your environment
  • Check docker compose up -d output
• Deploy Updates not working:
  • Ensure REPO_FOLDER is a valid git repo path with correct permissions
  • Check logs: /tmp/n8n-dashboard-deploy.log and /tmp/n8n-admin-server.log

License

MIT