# Deployment

A Woodpecker deployment consists of two parts:

- A server which is the heart of Woodpecker and ships the web interface.
- Next to one server, you can deploy any number of agents which will run the pipelines.

Each agent is able to process one pipeline step by default.
If you have four agents installed and connected to the Woodpecker server, your system will process four workflows in parallel.

:::tip
You can add more agents to increase the number of parallel workflows or set the agent's `WOODPECKER_MAX_WORKFLOWS=1` environment variable to increase the number of parallel workflows for that agent.
:::

## Which version of Woodpecker should I use?

Woodpecker is having two different kinds of releases: **stable** and **next**.

### Stable releases

We release a new version every four weeks and will release the current state of the `main` branch.
If there are security fixes or critical bug fixes, we'll release them directly.
There are no backports or similar.

#### Versioning

We use [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/) to be able,
to communicate when admins have to do manual migration steps and when they can just bump versions up.

#### Breaking changes

As of semver guidelines, breaking changes will be released as a major version. We will hold back
breaking changes to not release many majors each containing just a few breaking changes.
Prior to the release of a major version, a release candidate (RC) will be published to allow easy testing,
the actual release will be about a week later.

## Hardware Requirements

Below are minimal resources requirements for Woodpecker components itself:

| Component | Memory | CPU |
| --------- | ------ | --- |
| Server    | 200 MB | 1   |
| Agent     | 32 MB  | 1   |

Note, that those values do not include the operating system or workload (pipelines execution) resources consumption.

In addition you need at least some kind of database which requires additional resources depending on the selected database system.

## Installation

You can install Woodpecker on multiple ways:

- Using [docker-compose](./10-docker-compose.md) with the official [container images](./10-docker-compose.md#docker-images)
- Using [Kubernetes](./20-kubernetes.md) via the Woodpecker Helm chart
- Using binaries, DEBs or RPMs you can download from [latest release](https://github.com/woodpecker-ci/woodpecker/releases/latest)

## Authentication

Authentication is done using OAuth and is delegated to your forge which is configured using environment variables.

See the complete reference for all supported forges [here](../11-forges/10-overview.md).

## Database

By default Woodpecker uses a SQLite database which requires zero installation or configuration. See the [database settings](../30-database.md) page to further configure it or use MySQL or Postgres.

## SSL

Woodpecker supports SSL configuration by using Let's encrypt or by using own certificates. See the [SSL guide](../60-ssl.md). You can also put it behind a [reverse proxy](#behind-a-proxy)

## Metrics

A [Prometheus endpoint](../90-prometheus.md) is exposed.

## Behind a proxy

See the [proxy guide](../70-proxy.md) if you want to see a setup behind Apache, Nginx, Caddy or ngrok.

In the case you need to use Woodpecker with a URL path prefix (like: <https://example.org/woodpecker/>), add the root path to [`WOODPECKER_HOST`](../10-server-config.md#woodpecker_host).

## Third-party installation methods

:::info
These installation methods are not officially supported. If you experience issues with them, please open issues in the specific repositories.
:::

- Using [NixOS](./30-nixos.md) via the [NixOS module](https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=unstable&size=200&sort=relevance&query=woodpecker)
- [Using YunoHost](https://apps.yunohost.org/app/woodpecker)
- [On Cloudron](https://www.cloudron.io/store/org.woodpecker_ci.cloudronapp.html)