You can deploy an alpine image and ssh into it!

By taking a quick look at the docs you linked, I don't know if deploying a service and SSH'ing into it is the right thing to do, it also looks very complicated.

Then what do you think is the right process? Here is the method for fly.io: https://app.radicle.xyz/nodes/ash.radicle.garden/rad%3Az2kW9FFyC4EB6m6bu1AnmhvLo4sJs

There, it looks like fly can ssh into a console. SSH'ing into an empty service should be a feature.

That looks better but it seems like it uses inbound udp at port 8776, Railway does not support inbound UDP traffic

Would you please search in the previous guide to find out if inbound port is really necessary for this? I don't understand this. Just search by "port".

There is also a template: https://railway.com/deploy/radicle-seed-template. But, I can't inspect its contents so didn't use.

Original guide uses TCP

I couldn't ssh:

Failed to connect: Your application is not running or in a unexpected state

This may happen because the service is serverless (sleeping) and has scaled to zero.
Serverless containers cannot accept SSH connections when idle.

To SSH into this service:
- Send a request to wake the service, then retry
- Or disable 'Sleep when idle' in service settings to keep it running```

It doesn't say sleeping in Dashboard

Are you on the free plan?

Yes

Tried this: https://station.railway.com/questions/with-ssh-not-working-anymore-7f2f0d7f. DIdn't help

Set your start command as sleep infinity and try again.

Should I deploy alpine or follow the fly.io process?

Did you take a look at this template?

https://railway.com/deploy/radicle-seed-template

Yes

Oh yeah, true I missed that message my bad

Didn't deploy it, bcz author doesn't share the source

Btw free plan doesn't let disable sleep

It doesn't let you diasble serverless

https://github.com/polats/free-the-claw ?

That doesn't look like the source for Radicle

You can check the source code and the Dockerfile to see how this user deploys Radicle and then replicate it on your project

It is very hacky though, those Dockerfiles are all AI generated

Should I follow the fly.io process?

That's confirmed working

You can, you will need to translate that fly.toml file into settings on your Railway service, for example it lists a HTTP proxy on port 80, a TCP/UDP proxy on port 8776 and a volume at /root

Can you help me on that?

Is he using Debian?

# Stage 1: Download and extract pre-built binaries FROM debian:bookworm-slim AS fetcher RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends curl xz-utils ca-certificates \ && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* WORKDIR /tmp RUN curl -sSfL -o radicle.tar.xz https://files.radicle.xyz/releases/latest/radicle-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.xz \ && tar -xJf radicle.tar.xz --strip-components=1 \ && curl -sSfL -o radicle-httpd.tar.xz https://files.radicle.xyz/releases/radicle-httpd/latest/radicle-httpd-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.xz \ && tar -xJf radicle-httpd.tar.xz --strip-components=1

I have ssh'ed into the Alpine image

Should I use Debian instead?

yes FROM debian:bookworm-slim

Let's try fly? Will docker charge less credits than the original process?

I previously tried Gitea and got an Ubuntu system, here in Alpine it's confusing

Alpine was my suggestion, you can use debian

Fine. But, which would be better for this process? Debian/Alpine or copying that fy.io config?

Just copy that fly.io tutorial config

I need help on this

Will you?

I was taking a look at the repo and I don't think you can reliably host a Radicle node on Railway since it requires UDP.

I'm doing with Debian anyways

If I redeploy, will I lose all my data?

It can use TCP

If it doesn't has a volume mounted, then yes.

The volume is mounted to /data, so will I lose stuffs everywhere else?

yes

That means install and set up Radicle again? Any way to keep data?

The template I've linked earlier has a volume mounted at /home/radicle

How to wake this Debian service from sleep?

By sending a request to it

Yes, ofc, but how? I don't even know which port it listens to for attaching domain.

It doesn't matter the port, just by visiting the domain when the service is asleep it starts the container back again

WHich port to use here?

the fly.toml guide lists a HTTP proxy at port 80

I deployed Debian docker image, didn't expose any port

I have finished until systemd setup from the official guide. How to set a system service to autostart in this Debian container? Systemd says:

System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate. Failed to connect to system scope bus via local transport: Host is down

I'm trying to add support for HTTPS with Caddy: https://radicle.xyz/guides/seeder#adding-support-for-https

But I keep getting errors:

2026/03/04 06:22:33.693 ERROR http.acme_client challenge failed {"identifier": "khalid-seed.up.railway.app", "challenge_type": "tls-alpn-01", "status_code": 400, "problem_type": "urn:ietf:params:acme:error:tls", "error": "151.101.2.15: remote error: tls: no application protocol"} 2026/03/04 06:22:33.693 ERROR http.acme_client validating authorization {"identifier": "khalid-seed.up.railway.app", "error": "authorization failed: HTTP 400 urn:ietf:params:acme:error:tls - 151.101.2.15: remote error: tls: no application protocol", "order": "https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/acme/order/3114580002/486802673142", "attempt": 1, "max_attempts": 3}

2026/03/04 06:22:34.968 ERROR tls.obtain could not get certificate from issuer {"identifier": "khalid-seed.up.railway.app", "issuer": "acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org-directory", "error": "HTTP 429 urn:ietf:params:acme:error:rateLimited - too many failed authorizations (5) for \"khalid-seed.up.railway.app\" in the last 1h0m0s, retry after 2026-03-04 06:28:37 UTC: see https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/#authorization-failures-per-identifier-per-account"} 2026/03/04 06:22:34.968 WARN http missing email address for ZeroSSL; it is strongly recommended to set one for next time 2026/03/04 06:22:35.222 ERROR tls.obtain could not get certificate from issuer {"identifier": "khalid-seed.up.railway.app", "issuer": "acme.zerossl.com-v2-DV90", "error": "account pre-registration callback: failed getting EAB credentials: HTTP 422: caddy_legacy_user_removed (code 2977)"} 2026/03/04 06:22:35.222 ERROR tls.obtain will retry {"error": "[khalid-seed.up.railway.app] Obtain: account pre-registration callback: failed getting EAB credentials: HTTP 422: caddy_legacy_user_removed (code 2977)", "attempt": 1, "retrying_in": 60, "elapsed": 3.661088367, "max_duration": 2592000}

Btw, I tried to make a new bounty for this issue initially, as this is a critical issue. But, I keep getting error asking me to try again.

I can't open any bounty at all

@Medim Thanks for helping me so far. Can you help me with the Systemd and Caddy issues so that I can complete this setup?

@Medim Thanks for helping me so far. Can you help me with the Systemd and Caddy issues so that I can complete this setup?

By reading this guide, the Caddy service is optional and can be separated, not on the same container as your radicle service, you would just point the reverse_proxy to your radicle service

Is your radicle service working even if it's without https? (just so I can situate myself in what step of the guide we are currently)

Yes, the node is working. Do I need systemd? How can I set them to keep running in background and autostart? The systemd parts of the guide and the caddy part at the end are what I need now

Yes, the node is working. Do I need systemd? How can I set them to keep running in background and autostart? The systemd parts of the guide and the caddy part at the end are what I need now

@Kemix

@Medim

There's no need for systemd

You also don't need Caddy, you just expose radicle-httpd service on port 8080 (only if you're using it, according to the guide it is optional)

The only thing you need is the radicle-node service, radicle-httpd is optional

Yes, but I want to run the http service. Without Caddy, how do I expose the API under the Railway provided domain?

And, how do I run background services without Systemd?

Your node is already running, systemd is for proccess management (restart etc)

systemd is needed if you’re running on a VPS - you’re not, Railway handles that.

That's also necessary. Else, I'd have to start the processes each time I restart. Also, the radicle-httpd command to start it never exits. How do I run it in background?