Deploy a Ktor App for Free on Railway (No Credit Card)


To deploy a Ktor project to Railway(Click here for free registration) with more detailed steps, let's walk through everything you'll need to do, from setting up your environment to configuring and deploying the application.

1. Prepare Your Ktor Project

Before deploying to Railway, ensure your Ktor project is ready for deployment. This includes ensuring the project works locally and is packaged as a JAR file.

  • If you haven't created a Ktor project yet, you can create one using the official Ktor templates or by following the setup guide.
  • Your project should ideally be a Gradle-based project, as this is the most common setup for deploying to cloud platforms like Railway.

2. Install Required Tools

You’ll need to install a few tools if you don't have them already:

a. Railway CLI:

The Railway CLI will make deployment easier.

Install it globally with npm:

npm install -g railway

b. Docker:

You need Docker installed on your machine to build and deploy your app. You can download Docker from the official website.

  • Install Docker and ensure it's running on your machine.

3. Create a Railway Account

  • Go to Railway(click here) and sign up if you don’t have an account.
  • After creating your account, you’ll be able to manage projects and deployments.

4. Initialize Railway Project

Now, you need to initialize Railway in your Ktor project:

  1. Navigate to Your Project Directory:

    cd /path/to/your-ktor-project

  2. Initialize Railway: Run the following command to set up Railway for your project:

    railway init

    This command will:

    • Create a .railway folder in your project directory.
    • Ask you to log in or authenticate with Railway if you haven’t already.
    • Let you create a new project or link to an existing one.

5. Create a Dockerfile for Ktor Project

In order to deploy your Ktor project to Railway, you need to package your application inside a Docker container. To do this, create a Dockerfile in the root directory of your project.

Here’s an example of a Dockerfile for your Ktor app:

# Use OpenJDK 21 base image
FROM openjdk:21-jdk-slim

# Set the working directory inside the container
WORKDIR /app

# Copy the JAR file built by Gradle into the container
COPY build/libs/ktor-app.jar /app/ktor-app.jar

# Expose port 8080 to the outside world
EXPOSE 8080

# Command to run your app inside the container
CMD ["java", "-jar", "ktor-app.jar"]
  • Replace ktor-app.jar with the actual name of the JAR file generated by your Gradle build. It’s typically found in the build/libs directory after building the project.

6. Build Your Ktor Project

Now, you'll need to build your Ktor project to generate the JAR file that will be used in the Docker container.

a. Run Gradle to Build the JAR:

In your project’s root directory, run the following Gradle command:

./gradlew build

This will generate a .jar file inside the build/libs/ directory. The exact name of the JAR file may vary depending on your project configuration, but it will typically be something like ktor-app.jar.

7. Deploy Your Project to Railway

With your Dockerfile and project setup ready, you can now deploy your project to Railway.

  1. Login to Railway: If you haven’t logged in yet, run:

    railway login

    This will prompt you to authenticate using your Railway account.

  2. Deploy Using Railway CLI: To deploy your project, run:

    railway up

    This command will:

    • Build the Docker image from your Dockerfile.
    • Push the image to Railway.
    • Deploy the app on Railway.

    After the deployment is complete, you’ll receive a URL where your Ktor app is hosted. For example, it might look something like this:

    https://your-project-name.up.railway.app

8. Verify the Deployment

After the deployment, you can open the URL provided by Railway in your browser to test if your Ktor application is running as expected.

  • If there are issues, you can view logs to troubleshoot:
    railway logs

This will show the logs of your deployed application and help you identify any errors or issues.

Optional Steps

Environment Variables:

If your Ktor project needs any environment variables (e.g., database credentials, API keys), you can set them in Railway:

  1. Go to your project dashboard on Railway.
  2. Navigate to the Environment tab.
  3. Set the necessary environment variables.

These variables will be available to your application during runtime.

Configure Database (if applicable):

If your Ktor project uses a database (such as PostgreSQL or MySQL), you can easily add a database to your Railway project:

  1. In your Railway dashboard, click on Add Plugin and choose the database you need.
  2. Railway will set up the database and provide you with connection details, which you can use in your application.conf file or as environment variables.

Summary

To summarize, the steps to deploy a Ktor project to Railway are as follows:

  1. Prepare your Ktor project and ensure it's working locally.
  2. Install Railway CLI and Docker.
  3. Initialize Railway in your project using railway init.
  4. Create a Dockerfile to build a Docker image for your Ktor app.
  5. Build your project using Gradle (./gradlew build).
  6. Deploy using railway up.
  7. Verify deployment by accessing the provided URL.
  8. Optionally, configure environment variables or databases.

Popular posts from this blog

Learn Java 8 streams with an example - print odd/even numbers from Array and List

Example 1: Java 8 program to print odd numbers from a List   import java.util.Arrays; import java.util.List; import java.util.stream.Collectors; /*Java 8 Program to find Odd Numbers from a List*/ public class DriverClass { public static void main( String [] args) { List < Integer > numbers = Arrays. asList( 1 , 4 , 8 , 40 , 11 , 22 , 33 , 99 ); List < Integer > oddNumbers = numbers.stream(). filter(o -> o % 2 != 0 ). collect(Collectors.toList()); System.out.println(oddNumbers); } } 1. Initialize List using Arrays.asList() method. Java's built-in Arrays.asList() method converts an array into a list. This method takes an array as an argument and returns a List object. 2.  Java List interface provides stream() method which returns a sequential Stream with list of Integer as its source. 3. The Java stream filter(...
Read more

Java Stream API - How to convert List of objects to another List of objects using Java streams?

Image
In this section, we will show you how to convert a List of objects to another List of objects in Java using the Java streams map(). The ‘map’ method maps each element to its corresponding result. Java Stream API   The Java Stream API provides a functional programming approach over the object oriented capabilities of Java. It is used for processing collections of objects. The Stream in Java can be defined as a sequence of elements from a source List, Set or Array. Most of the stream operations return a Stream. This avails engender a chain of stream operations(stream pipe-lining). The streams withal support the aggregate or terminal operations on the elements. for example, finding the sum or maximum element or finding the average etc...Stream operations can either be executed sequentially or parallel. when performed parallelly, it is called a parallel stream.   Stream map() Method   The Java 8 Stream map() is an intermediate operation. It converts Stream<obj1> to Str...
Read more

Registration and Login with Spring Boot + Spring Security + Thymeleaf

Image
In this section, we will learn how to create user registration and login using Spring boot, Spring security, Thymeleaf, JPA, and H2DB. The GitHub repository link is provided at the end of this tutorial. You can download the source code. Technologies used: Spring Boot 2.5.5  Spring Data JPA  Spring Security  Thymeleaf  Maven 3+  Java 17  H2 Database   User Interface User Registration Authentication Failed Authentication success Sign out Final Project Structure: Complete pom.xml: <? xml version ="1.0" encoding ="UTF-8" ?> < project xmlns ="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns: xsi ="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi :schemaLocation ="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd" > < modelVersion >4.0.0</ modelVersion > < parent > < groupId >org.springframework.boot</ groupId > < artifactId >spring-boot-starter-pare...
Read more

Java, Spring Boot Mini Project - Library Management System - Download

Image
Hello everyone, Hope you are doing well. Here, we provide a Library Management System mini-project for beginners, it's free for download. Maybe you can build more on top of this project and create your own product, that's all about you. The source code download link is provided at the end of this post. 1. Benefit of this project You could cover the following technologies and features by learning and debugging this mini project. Java 17 Java Stream Java Lamda Expressions Java Records Functional programming Object-oriented programming var Keyword in Java Generics in Java Java Switch Spring boot 2.6.4 Spring Security Thymeleaf template engine OpenCSV Spring Data JPA Server Side Pagination H2 Database  Bootstrap HTML CSS and more... 2. Objective Of Spring Boot On Library Management System The main objective of this project is to manage the details of the books, author, category, and publisher. Only Admin/Librarian will manage all these activities. Also, they can export the data in ...
Read more

ReactJS, Spring Boot JWT Authentication Example

Image
In this tutorial, we’ll create a user registration & login example using ReactJS, Spring Boot, Spring Security, and JWT authentication. You could download the source code from our Github repository, the download link is provided at the end of this tutorial. Technologies used Backend Technologies: Java 17 Spring Boot 2.7.0 Spring Security Spring Data JPA JWT H2 Database Frontend Technologies: React 17.0.1 Axios 0.27.2 Redux 4.0.5 Bootstrap 4.5.2 ReactJS - SpringBoot - JWT - Flow Backend Project Directory: Frontend Project Directory: Following is the screenshot of our application - User Registration: User Signin: Profile View: Access Resource: We will build two projects:  1. Backend:   spring-boot-security-jwt 2. Frontend: react-redux-jwt Project 1: spring-boot-security-jwt Pom.xml <?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8" ?> <project xmlns = "http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"...
Read more

Top 5 Java ORM tools - 2024

Image
  The term ORM refers to object-relational mapping, which uses objects to adapt programming languages to database systems while allowing them to function with SQL and object-oriented programming ideas. Any kind of database management system that can accomplish object mapping to the table in the virtual system is suitable for the implementation of ORM. Java has a wide variety of ORM tools, some of which are mentioned below: 1. Hibernate Hibernate is a lightweight, open-source, non-invasive Java ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) framework that allows developers to create objects that function independently of database software and create persistence logic in any Java or JavaEE application. It offers an abstraction layer, so developers don't have to bother about implementations; Hibernate handles these tasks internally, such as connecting to databases and creating queries to carry out CRUD operations, among other things. Persistence logic development is done with it. Persistence logic r...
Read more

Java - Blowfish Encryption and decryption Example

Image
Blowfish is an encryption method developed by Bruce Schneier in 1993 as an alternative to the DES encryption method. It is significantly faster than DES and provides good encryption speed, although no effective cryptanalysis technique has been found to date. It is one of the first secure block ciphers that is not protected by any patents and is therefore freely available for anyone to use. This is a symmetric block cipher algorithm. Block size: 64 bits Key size: variable size from 32 to 448 bits number of subsections: 18 [P-array] number of rounds: 16 number of substitution blocks: 4 [each with 512 records of 32 bits each] develop  Example 1: Encryption and decryption using Blowfish import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException; import java.nio.charset.Charset; import java.security.InvalidKeyException; import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException; import java.util.Base64; import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException; import javax.crypto.Cipher; import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSiz...
Read more

Spring boot video streaming example-HTML5

Image
Hello everyone, Today we will learn how to stream MP4 video using Spring Boot and Spring Web Flux.  The Source code download link is provided at the end of this post. New, Quarkus Practice User Interface   Project Structure: G radle(build.gradle) plugins { id 'org.springframework.boot' version '2.5.4' id 'io.spring.dependency-management' version '1.0.11.RELEASE' id 'java' } group = 'com.knf.demo' version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT' sourceCompatibility = '11' repositories { mavenCentral() } dependencies { implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-webflux' testImplementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test' testImplementation 'io.projectreactor:reactor-test' } test { useJUnitPlatform() } Service (VideoStreamingService.java) package  com.knf.demo.service ; import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation. Autowired ; import org.springframework...
Read more

Google Cloud Storage + Spring Boot - File Upload, Download, and Delete

Image
In this section, we will learn  how to  create a simple spring boot application to perform different file operations such as upload, download, list, and delete files from the Google Cloud Storage. 1.  A little bit of Background Google Cloud Storage Cloud Storage is a managed service for storing unstructured data. Store any amount of data and retrieve it as often as you like. More Info - click here! Spring Boot Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring-based Applications that you can "just run".  More Info - click here! 2. Create a GCP Project First, Sign into the Google console at  https://console.cloud.google.com . You can create a new project by first selecting the project dropdown in the top left and selecting " New Project ". Next, specify your GCP  Project name  and  Project ID . Then  Click on the " CREATE " button. Copy " Project ID " and keep it for future purposes. 3. Create a Google Cloud Storage bucke...
Read more