# Local Install

This guide is for setting up FlowFuse on a single machine, ideal for smaller deployments, evaluations, or for contributors who want to gain a basic understanding of the FlowFuse platform and its features.

Note: Local installation does not support HTTPS

# Prerequisites

# Operating System

The install script has been tested against the following operating systems:

Raspbian/Raspberry Pi OS versions Buster/Bullseye ^[1]
Debian Buster/Bullseye
Fedora 35
Ubuntu 20.04
CentOS 8/RHEL 8/Amazon Linux 2
MacOS Big Sur & Monterey on Intel & Apple M processors
Windows 10 & 11

# Node.js

FlowFuse requires Node.js v18.

# Linux

The install script will check to see if it can find a suitable version of Node.js. If not, it will offer to install it for you.

It will also ensure you have the appropriate build tools installed that are often needed by Node.js modules to build native components.

# Windows/MacOS

If the install script cannot find a suitable version of Node.js, it will exit.

You will need to manually install it before proceeding. Information about how to do this can be found on the Node.js website here: https://nodejs.org/en/download

You will also need to install the appropriate build tools.

Windows: the standard Node.js installer will offer to do that for you.
MacOS: you will need the XCode Command Line Tools to be installed. This can be done by running the following command:
```
xcode-select --install
```

# Installing FlowFuse

Create a directory to be the base of your FlowFuse install. For example: /opt/flowforge or c:\flowforge

For Linux/MacOS:
```
sudo mkdir /opt/flowforge
sudo chown $USER /opt/flowforge
```
For Windows:
```
mkdir c:\flowforge
```
Download the latest Installer zip file into a temporary location.
Unzip the downloaded zip file and copy its contents to the FlowForge directory

# For Linux/MacOS:

Assumes /tmp/ is the directory where you downloaded flowforge-installer.zip
```
cd /tmp/
unzip flowforge-installer.zip
cp -R flowforge-installer/* /opt/flowforge
```
# For Windows:

Assumes c:\temp is the directory where you downloaded flowforge-installer.zip
```
cd c:\temp
tar -xf flowforge-installer.zip
xcopy /E /I flowforge-installer c:\flowforge
```
Run the installer and follow the prompts

For Linux/MacOS:
```
cd /opt/flowforge
./install.sh
```
For Windows:
```
cd c:\flowforge
install.bat
```

# Installing as a service (optional)

On Linux, the installer will ask if you want to run FlowFuse as a service. This will mean it starts automatically whenever you restart your device.

If you select this option, it will ask if you want to run the service as the current user, or create a new flowforge user. If you choose to create the user, it will also change the ownership of the FlowFuse directory to that user.

# Configuring FlowFuse

The default FlowFuse configuration is provided in the file flowforge.yml

Linux/MacOS: /opt/flowforge/etc/flowforge.yml
Windows: c:\flowforge\etc\flowforge.yml

The default configuration file already contains everything you need to get started with FlowFuse.

It will allow you to access FlowFuse and the Node-RED instances you create, from the same server running the platform. If you want to allow access from other devices on the network, you must edit the configuration file and change the host setting to 0.0.0.0 and change base_url to contain the IP address of the server.

NOTE: We do not support changing the host and base_url values once you have created an instance. For more information on all of the options available, see the configuration guide.

# Running FlowFuse

To run it manually, you can use:

Linux/MacOS:
```
/opt/flowforge/bin/flowforge.sh
```
Windows:
```
c:\flowforge\bin\flowforge.bat
```

Or to run as a service:

Linux
```
service flowforge start
```

# First Run Setup

Once FlowFuse is started, you will be ready to perform the first run setup.

Follow this guide to continue.

# Setting up Mosquitto (optional)

The platform depends on the Mosquitto MQTT Broker to provide real-time messaging between devices and the platform.

This is currently an optional component - the platform will work without the broker, but some features will not be available.

We do not support sharing a broker with other non-FlowFuse applications. If you already have mosquitto installed and running, you will need to run a second instance dedicated to FlowFuse.

You can either follow the manual install steps, which involve building the authentication plugin from scratch, or make use of the Docker install.

# Manual install

Note: if you are running on Windows, you will need to follow the Docker install instructions below due to a limitation of the authentication plugin we use.

Follow the appropriate install instructions for your operating system.

Once installed, you can download pre-built binaries for Linux platforms from here and then jump to step 4 below.

On MacOS you will need to build and install the authentication plugin.

Clone the plugin repository

git clone https://github.com/iegomez/mosquitto-go-auth.git

Follow the instructions on building the plugin
This should result in a file called go-auth.so being generated
Run mosquitto with the configuration file found in the broker directory

You will need to customise the values to match your local configuration:
- auth_plugin - set to the path of the go-auth.so file built in the previous step
- listener 1883/1884 - if you already have mosquitto running locally, you'll need to change these ports to something else.
- auth_opt_http_host / auth_opt_http_port - if you plan to run the platform on a different port, change these settings to match.
```
mosquitto -c broker/mosquitto.conf
```

# Docker Install

Instead of installing and building mosquitto and the authentication plugin from source, you can use a pre-built docker image that provides everything needed.

First pull the latest version of the pre-built container
```
docker pull iegomez/mosquitto-go-auth
```
A default mosquitto.conf file can be found in the broker directory.

You will need to customise the values to match your local configuration:
- auth_opt_http_host value to match the IP address of either the docker0 interface or the external IP address of the machine running the FlowFuse platform
- auth_opt_http_port if you have changed the port the FlowFuse platform is running on
- auth_plugin should be changed to auth_plugin /mosquitto/go-auth.so
Start the container with the following command
```
docker run -d -v /opt/flowforge/broker/mosquitto.conf:/etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf -p 1883:1883 -p 1884:1884 --name flowforge-broker iegomez/mosquitto-go-auth
```
This will map the 1883/1884 ports to the host machine so they can be accessed outside of the container. If you already have an MQTT broker running on port 1883, then you'll need to modify the -p options to use a different set of ports. For example: -p 9883:1883 -p 9884:1884.

# File Server

By default the FlowFuse File Server component is disabled as it is a licensed feature. If you provide a license you can start the File Server with the following command:

sudo service flowforge-file start

You can then uncomment the following section in the /opt/flowforge/etc/flowforge.yml file

#################################################
# File Server config                            #
#################################################

fileStore:
  url: http://localhost:3001

# Upgrade

If upgrading from 1.x.y to 2.x.y then you may need to upgrade from NodeJS v16 to NodeJS v18. Please ensure you do this before the following steps.

To upgrade to the latest release you can follow these steps. Replace x.y.z with the version you are upgrading to.

Stop FlowFuse sudo service flowfuse stop ^[2]
Change into the app directory
- cd /opt/flowforge/app (Linux/MacOS)
- cd c:\flowforge\app (Windows)
NPM install the desired version
- sudo -u flowforge npm install @flowfuse/flowfuse@x.y.z (Linux/MacOS) ^[3]
- npm install @flowfuse/flowfuse@x.y.z (Windows)
Check the release notes for any additional steps needed to upgrade the particular version
Restart FlowFuse sudo service flowfuse start ^[2:1]

If you are running as your normal user you can drop the sudo -u flowfuse and just run npm install @flowfuse/flowfuse@x.y.z

# Uninstall

To uninstall, stop all the running processes and then delete the /opt/flowfuse or c:\flowfuse\ directory.

Arm6 devices, such as the original Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W are not supported. ↩︎
Assumes you are running FlowFuse as a Linux service. ↩︎ ↩︎
Assumes you are running FlowFuse as the flowfuse user as created by the installer ↩︎