Deploy and Host Carrier relay on Railway

Carrier relay is the blind store-and-forward server behind Carrier, a private end-to-end encrypted messenger. The relay holds ciphertext for your contacts while their phones are offline and wakes them with content-free push. It never holds keys and cannot read anything.

About Hosting Carrier relay

One small Node service from a digest-pinned public image, one volume at /data (undelivered mail, push subscriptions, the relay's own keys), one public TLS domain. Paste the claim code from the Carrier app into CLAIM_TOKEN, deploy, and go back to the app - it finds the new relay and makes your phone the admin automatically. Leave the other variables at their defaults. Runs comfortably in the smallest instance.

Why Deploy Carrier relay?

Running your own relay means no third party is structurally in the middle of your conversations: the metadata a relay necessarily sees (who talks to whom, among its users) stays on your server instead of anyone else's. Messages remain end-to-end encrypted either way.

Common Use Cases

• Your own private relay for family and friends, invited with a QR from inside the app
• Moving an existing Carrier account off the default relay (Settings -> Use your own relay)
• A self-sovereign fallback: federation lets people on other relays still reach your members

Dependencies for Carrier relay Hosting

• The Carrier app (free, at thecarrier.org) on your phone - it mints the claim code and becomes the admin
• No database, no external services

Deployment Dependencies

• Carrier - the messenger this relay serves
• Self-hosting guide - in-app: Settings -> Use your own relay