Self-Hosting

Rustume is designed for local or single-user deployments. Exposing it on the internet requires a reverse proxy for TLS and optional access control.

Architecture

The self-hosted deployment is stateless:

• The Axum server handles parse, render, validate, and template APIs
• Resume data lives in the browser (IndexedDB via WASM) — not on the server
• No database is required unless you enable Rustume Cloud mode (RUSTUME_CLOUD=true)

This keeps operations simple: one container, no backups of user data on the server.

Reverse proxy

Place Rustume behind any reverse proxy that terminates TLS.

Caddy example

Caddy automatically provisions TLS certificates and forwards traffic to the Rustume container.

rustume.example.com {
  reverse_proxy rustume:3000
}

nginx example

Use nginx as a reverse proxy. Configure TLS certificates separately, for example with Certbot.

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name rustume.example.com;
  # Obtain certificates via Certbot/Let's Encrypt, then set:
  # ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/rustume.example.com/fullchain.pem;
  # ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/rustume.example.com/privkey.pem;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
  }
}

Set CORS_ORIGIN to your public origin when the frontend is served from a different domain:

docker run -p 3000:3000 \
  -e CORS_ORIGIN=https://rustume.example.com \
  ghcr.io/lgtm-hq/rustume:latest

Persistence

Self-hosted (default)

The server stores nothing. Users should export resumes regularly:

• JSON export — portable backup of full resume data
• PDF export — rendered output for applications

Clearing browser data removes local resumes unless exported first.

Cloud mode (optional)

When RUSTUME_CLOUD=true and DATABASE_URL is set, resumes persist in PostgreSQL. Use a managed provider (Neon) or self-host PostgreSQL with a Docker volume:

# docker-compose.yml cloud profile
volumes:
  rustume_pgdata:

See Cloud storage for CRUD behavior and Backups for PostgreSQL backup strategy.

Health checks

Docker Compose and orchestrators should probe GET /health or use the built-in healthcheck:

healthcheck:
  test: ["CMD", "/app/rustume-server", "--health"]
  interval: 30s
  timeout: 3s
  retries: 3

The --health flag performs an in-process HTTP probe — no curl required in distroless images.

Resource requirements

Typical single-user usage:

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	1 core	2 cores
RAM	512 MB	1 GB
Disk	200 MB (image)	1 GB (logs + temp)

PDF rendering is CPU-bound. Concurrent renders on a small VPS may queue, so self-hosted operators should size and monitor the deployment for their workload.

Security headers

The server sets X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, X-Frame-Options: DENY, Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin, and X-XSS-Protection: 0 on all responses.