stroblmeandClaude Opus 5
d01a8dad37
Follows the portal: the noun is "instance" everywhere the app says it — UI strings, CLI output, error details, docs and comments. The wire keys (`instance_id`, `instance_token`) and the hub route this calls move with it. An existing cloud.json is adopted rather than refused: without the key alias the dataclass fails to parse, which the caller swallows and reads as "never enrolled" instead of "reconnect". `instance_key` on a node type becomes `target_key`. It means the outside thing a node points at, which is a different sense of the word, and keeping both would put two meanings of "instance" in one codebase. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015YrQnKV3bnQd4K342y8tKj
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Accounts and the portal
Fluksio is self-hosted by default. An instance 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:
- 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.
- You want a browser on it anyway. A
pip install fluksioinstance has no web server for the dashboard at all.
An enrolled instance 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 instance's owner gets.
On the portal (hub.${DOMAIN}, or fluksio.com for
the hosted one): Instances → Add instance, give it a name, and copy
the code.
On the instance, 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 instance with no web interface of its own:
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
instance has several superusers.
Once enrolled, the instance appears under Instances with its
status, when it was last seen and its version. Open takes you to its
dashboard at ${DOMAIN}/i/{instance-id}.
What the portal can and cannot do
The portal holds one credential for your instance and proxies requests down the tunnel. What those requests may do is decided on the instance, by the same checks a local session passes.
The trust anchor is a signing keypair on the portal. Every instance 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 instance only if a superuser there admits them, and they arrive as a local user of their own rather than as you.
- They: Instances → Join an instance, and copy the code. It is bound to their portal account and expires in fifteen minutes.
- You, on the instance: Settings → Remote access → Add remote user, and enter the code.
- They now see the instance under Instances, marked Shared by, with Open and nothing else. Renaming, re-keying and removing stay with you.
The instance 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 instance 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 instance | Disconnect | unilateral and immediate — the portal's tokens stop verifying here whatever the portal still has on file |
| The instance | 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 instance, including wall panels paired through it.
The instance'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 instances, and the websocket each one dials in on. Two things
about it are load-bearing:
- It runs a single process. It keeps its attached instances 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 instance to be enrolled again.
Websocket upgrades must be enabled on the hub hostname in whatever proxy
fronts it. Without them every instance sits in a reconnect loop and the
portal shows them all offline.
See also
- The
fluksiocommand —fluksio enroll, and what it writes - Dashboards and panels — pairing a wall screen through the portal
- Getting started: data science — the shortest path from a pip install to a browser