Run SecureLink
on Your Own Infrastructure

You need two things installed on your server:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER   # allow running docker without sudo
newgrp docker

Clone the repo and create your environment file from the template.

git clone https://github.com/your-org/SecureLinkApp.git
cd securelink
cp .env.docker.example .env

Open .env in any text editor. The file is split into sections — you only need to fill in the Required section to get started:

Run these commands to generate cryptographically secure keys and paste the output into your .env file.

python3 -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))"
python3 -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))"

python3 -c "from cryptography.fernet import Fernet; print(Fernet.generate_key().decode())"

With your .env configured, spin up the full stack — the app, PostgreSQL, and all background services start automatically.

docker compose up -d

The app binds to 127.0.0.1:5000 by default (localhost only). Check that it started correctly:

docker compose ps          # all services should show "healthy"
docker compose logs web    # view app startup logs

For local testing, open http://localhost:5000 in your browser. For production, continue to Step 5 to add HTTPS.

The app listens on localhost only. Nginx sits in front of it, handles HTTPS termination, and forwards traffic to the app.

sudo apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

sudo cp nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/securelink
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/securelink
# Replace all instances of "yourdomain.com" with your actual domain

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/securelink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com

Certbot will automatically update your Nginx config with the certificate paths and set up auto-renewal. Your instance is now accessible at https://yourdomain.com.

The browser extension needs to point at your server instead of the default securelinkapp.com. There are two ways to do this:

Option A — Settings Panel (easiest, no code changes)

Option B — Bake your URL into the extension

Edit line 1 of browser-extension/background.js:

const DEFAULT_API_BASE = 'https://yourdomain.com';

Then zip the browser-extension/ folder and distribute it to your users, or publish to the Chrome Web Store.

The scanner works without any external API keys using built-in heuristics. These integrations improve detection accuracy:

Run the admin manager inside the running container to create your first admin user:

docker compose exec web python manage_admins.py

Then sign in at https://yourdomain.com/login. Your instance is live.

docker compose stop           # stop the stack
docker compose start          # start it again
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d   # update to latest
docker compose logs -f web    # tail live app logs