---
title: "Deploy WhoDB"
description: "Secure WhoDB with persistent sessions, Basic Auth, and generated secrets."
category: "Analytics"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/whodb-on-railway
---

# Deploy WhoDB

Secure WhoDB with persistent sessions, Basic Auth, and generated secrets.

**[Deploy WhoDB on Railway](https://railway.com/template/whodb-on-railway)**

- **Creator:** l4time's Projects
- **Category:** Analytics

## Template content

### whodb

- **Source:** https://github.com/l4time/railway-whodb-template
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host WhoDB on Railway

## About Hosting WhoDB

WhoDB Community Edition is a lightweight database explorer for browsing
schemas, running queries, and inspecting data through a web interface. This
template runs the exact-pinned WhoDB image behind an exact-pinned Caddy Basic
Auth wrapper and persists WhoDB's encrypted session state on a Railway volume.
It deliberately does not deploy a target database: connect only databases you
own and keep them private.

## Common Use Cases

- Explore a private development or staging database without installing a
  desktop client.
- Inspect schemas and run bounded queries through a secured browser interface.
- Provide a small team with one protected, persistent WhoDB workspace.
- Connect to an existing Railway database over the private network using a
  dedicated least-privilege account.

## Dependencies for WhoDB Hosting

### Deployment Dependencies

The template creates one public `whodb` service and one Railway volume mounted
at `/data`. There is no bundled database, Redis, Bucket, gateway, TCP proxy, or
second service. WhoDB and Caddy are pinned by immutable image digests. One
replica runs continuously with Serverless disabled.

Railway generates the Basic Auth password and WhoDB encryption seed. The fixed
username is `whodb`. Caddy protects every UI and API route; only `/healthz` is
intentionally unauthenticated for Railway readiness checks. Secure cookies,
disabled update checks, disabled heartbeat telemetry, and a disabled manual
credential form are the defaults.

After deployment, use username `whodb` with the generated Basic Auth password.
Configure an optional database profile through WhoDB environment variables.
Keep the target private and use a dedicated least-privilege database account.

The `/data` volume persists encrypted WhoDB sessions. It does not contain or
back up target database data. The documented recovery path is an
application-level `/data` archive restored onto the mounted volume; atomic
Railway replacement-volume recovery is not claimed.

## Why Deploy WhoDB on Railway?

Railway provides the build, TLS domain, private networking, generated secrets,
health checks, restart policy, metrics, and persistent volume in one deploy.
The template adds a tested full-path authentication boundary and conservative
defaults while keeping the topology to one application service.

This independent community template is not affiliated with or endorsed by
WhoDB, Caddy, or Railway. Support covers the wrapper and documented Railway
contract; upstream application behavior, database permissions, external
connectivity, and platform/account incidents belong to their respective
owners.


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- [Matomo Analytics + MariaDB](https://railway.com/deploy/matomo-analytics-mariadb) — Privacy-friendly analytics with MariaDB and persistent volumes.

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