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app/docs/interface/portal.md
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stroblmeandClaude Opus 5 d12c81c8a0 Publish the documentation site: docs.fluksio.com
A zensical site under docs/, served by a new `docs` compose service behind
Traefik, built with --strict in CI. Same pattern the sibling n3xd workspace
uses.

Getting started splits the way the landing page does — one path is
`pip install fluksio` and a training script, the other is a Docker stack and
an afternoon in the browser — because the two audiences will not spend the same
amount of time. Everything after that is shared: the concepts, the web
interface (app and portal), the CLI and the API, and a reference for node types,
payload types and configuration.

The three flow guides move here from the docs submodule rather than being
copied, so there is one version of them.

Styling mirrors DESIGN-GUIDELINES.md: the app's token palette remapped onto
Material's variables in both schemes, Inter, the 16px panel radius, and the one
terracotta accent spent on the facility lane of the audience split.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01M7Xv3cJEW5c8AXxn2hoojV
2026-08-22 05:55:34 +02:00

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# Accounts and the portal
Fluksio is self-hosted by default. An installation runs offline, keeps its data
on its own disk, and never contacts anything unless you tell it to.
The **portal** is optional, and it exists to solve two specific problems:
1. **Your machine has no inbound route.** A homelab behind CGNAT, a cluster
node with no open ports, a laptop. Opening one is work, and often not
allowed.
2. **You want a browser on it anyway.** A `pip install fluksio` installation
has no web server for the dashboard at all.
An enrolled installation dials *out* to the portal and holds one websocket
open. The portal serves the dashboard from its own side, and only the API calls
travel down the tunnel — so the interface loads at portal speed and your
machine stays unreachable from the internet.
## Enrolling
Two halves, deliberately: whoever performs the second step decides what the
installation's owner gets.
**On the portal** (`hub.${DOMAIN}`, or [fluksio.com](https://fluksio.com) for
the hosted one): **Installations → Add installation**, give it a name, and copy
the code.
**On the installation**, either from the dashboard:
> **Settings → Remote access**, enter the portal URL and the code, press
> **Connect**.
or from the command line, which is the path for an installation with no web
interface of its own:
```sh
fluksio enroll ABCD-1234 --portal https://hub.fluksio.com
```
The code is single-use and expires in fifteen minutes.
A portal session then arrives as *that local account* — the settings screen
states this plainly, because it is the whole security model in one sentence.
Use `--as someone@example.com` to enrol as a specific local account when the
installation has several superusers.
Once enrolled, the installation appears under **Installations** with its
status, when it was last seen and its version. **Open** takes you to its
dashboard at `${DOMAIN}/i/{installation-id}`.
## What the portal can and cannot do
The portal holds one credential for your installation and proxies requests down
the tunnel. What those requests may do is decided **on the installation**, by
the same checks a local session passes.
The trust anchor is a signing keypair on the portal. Every installation pins
its public half at enrolment and rejects anything else — which is what stops a
hijacked DNS entry or a mis-issued certificate from impersonating the portal.
## Letting someone else in
Anyone else on the portal reaches your installation only if a superuser there
admits them, and they arrive as a local user of their own rather than as you.
1. **They**: **Installations → Join an installation**, and copy the code. It is
bound to their portal account and expires in fifteen minutes.
2. **You**, on the installation: **Settings → Remote access → Add remote
user**, and enter the code.
3. They now see the installation under **Installations**, marked *Shared by*,
with **Open** and nothing else. Renaming, re-keying and removing stay with
you.
The installation redeems that code against the portal using its own credential.
A portal session cannot do this — which is what stops somebody you let in from
letting others in.
On the installation they appear under **Admin → Users**, badged *Portal*, never
a superuser and with no password.
## Cutting it off
| From | Action | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| The portal | **New code** | rotates the credential and drops the current link |
| The portal | **Remove** | deletes the registration and cuts the connection |
| The installation | **Disconnect** | unilateral and immediate — the portal's tokens stop verifying here whatever the portal still has on file |
| The installation | delete a user under **Admin → Users** | that one person, immediately, independent of the portal |
**New code** also cuts every credential the portal minted for this installation,
including [wall panels paired through it](dashboards.md#a-screen-somewhere-you-cannot-reach).
The installation's own **Disconnect** is the one to reach for if you are ever
unsure: it does not need the portal's cooperation.
## Running your own portal
The portal is the `index` stack's `hub` service — accounts, the registry of
connected installations, and the websocket each one dials in on. Two things
about it are load-bearing:
- **It runs a single process.** It keeps its attached installations in the
memory of the process holding their sockets, so a second worker would answer
for links it does not hold. Scaling out needs a routing layer first.
- **Back up the signing keypair with the database.** Replacing it forces every
installation to be enrolled again.
Websocket upgrades must be enabled on the `hub` hostname in whatever proxy
fronts it. Without them every installation sits in a reconnect loop and the
portal shows them all offline.
## See also
- [The `fluksio` command](../code/cli.md) — `fluksio enroll`, and what it writes
- [Dashboards and panels](dashboards.md) — pairing a wall screen through the portal
- [Getting started: data science](../getting-started/data-science.md) — the
shortest path from a pip install to a browser