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Deployment Overview

This section explains how to deploy MCP Gateway in various environments - from local development to cloud-native platforms like Kubernetes, IBM Code Engine, AWS, and Azure.

🔐 Security First

Before deploying to production, review our Security Guide for:

  • Critical security configurations
  • Production hardening checklist
  • Authentication and authorization setup
  • Network security best practices
  • Container security requirements

🗺 Deployment Options

MCP Gateway supports multiple deployment strategies:

Method Description
Local Run directly on your dev machine using make, uvicorn, or a virtual-env
Container Package and run as a single container image using Podman or Docker
Compose Stack Bring up Gateway + Postgres + Redis (and optional MPC servers) with Podman/Docker Compose
Minikube Launch a local single-node Kubernetes cluster and deploy the Gateway stack
Kubernetes Generic manifests or Helm chart for any K8s-compliant platform
OpenShift OpenShift-specific deployment using Routes, SCCs, and Operator-managed back-ends
IBM Code Engine Serverless container build & run on IBM Cloud
AWS Deploy on ECS Fargate, EKS, or EC2-hosted containers
Azure Run on Azure Container Apps, App Service, or AKS
Security Guide Essential security configurations and best practices for production deployments
Performance Architecture Visual overview of Rust-powered components, caching layers, and scaling architecture

🛠 Runtime Configuration

MCP Gateway loads configuration from:

  • .env file (in project root or mounted at /app/.env)
  • Environment variables (overrides .env)
  • CLI flags (e.g., via run.sh)

⚠️ Security Note: Never store sensitive credentials directly in environment variables. Use a secrets management system in production. See the Security Guide for details.

🧪 Health Checks

All deployments should expose:

GET /health

This returns basic system latency metrics and can be used with cloud provider readiness probes.

📦 Container Basics

The default container image:

  • Uses the Red Hat Universal Base image running as a non-root user
  • Exposes port 4444
  • Runs gunicorn with Uvicorn workers
  • Uses .env for all settings

For Kubernetes, you can mount a ConfigMap or Secret as .env.

Important: For production deployments, ensure you follow the container hardening guidelines in our Security Guide.