n8n-docs/docs/hosting/authentication/user-management-self-hosted.md

description
Configure self-hosted n8n for user management

Configure self-hosted n8n for user management

!!! info "Feature availability" * Not available on Desktop. * Requires a paid plan.

User management in n8n allows you to invite people to work in your n8n instance.

This document describes how to configure your n8n instance to support user management, and the steps to start inviting users.

Refer to the main User management guide for more information about usage, including:

• Managing users
• Skipping or disabling user management
• Account types
• Best practices

Setup

There are three stages to set up user management in n8n:

1. Configure your n8n instance to use your SMTP server.
2. Start n8n and follow the setup steps in the app.
3. Invite users.

Step one: SMTP

You need an SMTP server for user management to send invites and password resets. Get the following information from your SMTP provider:

• Server name
• SMTP username
• SMTP password
• SMTP sender name

To set up SMTP with n8n, configure the SMTP environment variables for your n8n instance. For information on how to set environment variables, refer to Configuration

Variable	Type	Description	Required?
N8N_EMAIL_MODE	string	smtp	Required
N8N_SMTP_HOST	string	your_SMTP_server_name	Required
N8N_SMTP_PORT	number	your_SMTP_server_port Default is 465.	Optional
N8N_SMTP_USER	string	your_SMTP_username	Required
N8N_SMTP_PASS	string	your_SMTP_password	Required
N8N_SMTP_SENDER	string	Sender email address. You can optionally include the sender name. Example with name: N8N <contact@n8n.com>	Required
N8N_SMTP_SSL	boolean	Whether to use SSL for SMTP (true) or not (false). Defaults to true.	Optional
N8N_UM_EMAIL_TEMPLATES_INVITE	string	Full path to your HTML email template. This overrides the default template for invite emails.	Optional
N8N_UM_EMAIL_TEMPLATES_PWRESET	string	Full path to your HTML email template. This overrides the default template for password reset emails.	Optional

If your n8n instance is already running, you need to restart it to enable the new SMTP settings.

!!! note "More configuration options" There are more configuration options available as environment variables. Refer to Environment variables for a list. These include options to disable tags, workflow templates, and the personalization survey, if you don't want your users to see them.

!!! note "New to SMTP?" If you're not familiar with SMTP, this blog post by SendGrid offers a short introduction, while Wikipedia's Simple Mail Transfer Protocol article provides more detailed technical background.

Step two: in-app setup

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Step three: invite users

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