Self hosted Dify on my Mac Mini M4

Overview

Here’s the architecture diagram for hosting Dify + Ollama on Mac Mini M4, using Nginx Proxy Manager and NoIP for dynamic IP resolution:

1. Install Docker & Docker Compose

Install Docker Desktop for macOS (with arm support)

2. Configure No‑IP DDNS on Router

Sign up at No‑IP.com, create a hostname (e.g., mydify.ddns.net)
In router’s Admin UI (typically under WAN → DDNS or Advanced → Dynamic DNS):
- Select No‑IP as provider
- Enter username/email, password or DDNS key, and the hostname.
- Save/apply—the router will automatically update the public IP.

3. Deploy NGINX Proxy Manager

Create a folder (e.g., ~/nginx-proxy-manager) and add:

version: '3'
services:
  nginx-proxy-manager:
    image: jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80" # for verify
      - "443:443" # for http traffic
      - "81:81" # for cms admin
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - ./letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt

cd ~/nginx-proxy-manager
docker compose up -d

Configure admin via http://my-mac-static-ip:81
Set SSL in UI using Let’s Encrypt

4. Install & Run Dify

git clone https://github.com/langgenius/dify.git
cd dify/docker
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up -d

Dify UI now runs on port 5001.

5. Create Proxy Host in NGINX Proxy Manager

In the NPM web UI:

Domain Names:
- mydify-hostname.ddns.net
Forward to http://host.docker.internal:5001(HTTP)
Enable SSL with Let’s Encrypt
Force HTTP → HTTPS

This ensures Dify instance is securely reachable.

6. Set Up Ollama LLM

brew install ollama
ollama pull llama3.2:8b
ollama pull deepseek-r1:8b
OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434 ollama serve

This makes Ollama accessible at 11434 on all network interfaces for Docker to reach.

7. Connect Ollama to Dify

In the Dify dashboard (Settings → Model Providers):

Model Name: llama3.2:3b
Base URL: http://host.docker.internal:11434
Type: Chat
Max Tokens: 4096

Save it—Dify will detect and list llama3.2:3b under available models.

8. Restart & Verify

docker compose restart nginx-proxy-manager
cd ~/dify/docker && docker compose restart

Now go to https://mydify-hostname.ddns.net, log in, and start building AI workflows!

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