How to Install Contact Hunter API on Your VPS (Step-by-Step Guide)

Contact Hunter API is a powerful tool for scraping Google Maps business data and extracting contact details from websites. If you’re setting up your own instance on a VPS (like DigitalOcean, AWS, or any Linux server), this guide will walk you through the process from zero to production—step by step.

No previous server experience? Don’t worry—we’ll make it simple.

🛠️ Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have:

✅ A VPS running Ubuntu 22.04 or later (we recommend at least 1 vCPU & 2 GB RAM for smooth performance).
✅ Root access (SSH credentials) to your VPS.

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📦 Step 1: Connect to Your Server

Open your terminal and SSH into your VPS:

ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP

Replace YOUR_SERVER_IP with your VPS IP address.

🔄 Step 2: Update Your Server

Run these commands to update your server packages to the latest versions:

 apt update && apt upgrade -y

🖥️ Step 3: Install Required System Libraries

Puppeteer (used by Contact Hunter) requires some system libraries for headless Chromium. Install them with:

apt install -y \
  libasound2t64 libatk-bridge2.0-0t64 libatk1.0-0t64 \
  libcups2t64 libdrm2 libgbm1 libgtk-3-0t64 libnss3 \
  libx11-xcb1 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxrandr2 \
  libpangocairo-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0

This ensures Chromium can run properly inside Puppeteer.

🟢 Step 4: Install Node.js and npm

Contact Hunter runs on Node.js. To install Node.js 18.x (LTS)

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | bash -
apt install -y nodejs

Verify installation:

node -v
npm -v

⚡ Step 5: Install PM2 Process Manager

PM2 keeps your API running in the background—even after server restarts

npm install -g pm2

📥 Step 6: Clone Contact Hunter API

Clone the GitHub repository:

git clone https://github.com/Rajeevdaz/contact-hunter-api.git
cd contact-hunter-api

📦 Step 7: Install Node.js Dependencies

Run:

npm install

This will download all required packages.

🔐 Step 8: Configure Environment Variables

Copy the example environment file:

cp .env.example .env

Then edit .env to add your API key or other settings:

nano .env

Save changes with CTRL+O, then exit with CTRL+X.

🚀 Step 9: Start the API with PM2

Start the API and make it persistent:

pm2 start app.js --name contacthunter
pm2 save
pm2 startup

🔥 Step 10: Open Firewall Ports

If UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) is enabled, allow SSH and API traffic:

ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow 3000
ufw enable

✅ Done!

Your Contact Hunter API is now live at:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:3000

🚀 Test Contact Hunter API Endpoints

Once your server is up and running, you can test the API using cURL or Postman.

✅ 1. Test the /gmap endpoint (Scrape Google Maps)

This endpoint scrapes businesses from Google Maps based on your query.

Sample cURL Request:

curl -X GET "http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:3000/gmap?query=restaurants+in+new+york&count=10" \
  -H "api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

• Replace YOUR_SERVER_IP with your VPS IP
• Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the API key from your .env file
• Adjust the query parameter to your target location/business
• count defines how many businesses to fetch (optional, defaults to 5)

✅ 2. Test the /website endpoint (Extract Contact Info)

This endpoint extracts emails, Facebook, and Instagram links from a website.

Sample cURL Request:

curl -X GET "http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:3000/website?url=https://example.com" \
  -H "api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

• Replace https://example.com with the website URL you want to scrape.
• Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual API key.

📥 Download the N8N Workflow Template (JSON)

To save time, I’ve included the ready-to-use n8n workflow JSON file. Simply import it into your n8n instance and start scraping leads instantly.

• Download Workflow JSON : Download