FlowForge Installer

This repository provides the installer for local installations of the FlowForge platform.

Please refer to the main documentation for a complete guide to installing and setting up the platform: https://github.com/flowforge/flowforge/tree/main/docs

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
Windows 10

Node.js

FlowForge requires Node.js v16.

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.

On Windows, the standard Node.js installer will offer to do that for you.

On 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 FlowForge

Create a directory to be the home of your FlowForge 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 Installer zip file from https://github.com/flowforge/installer/releases

Unzip the downloaded file into a temporary location and copy its contents to
the FlowForge directory

For Linux/MacOS:

cd /tmp/
unzip flowforge-installer-x.y.z.zip
cp -R flowforge-installer-x.y.z/* /opt/flowforge

For Windows:

cd c:\temp
tar -xf flowforge-installer-x.y.z.zip
xcopy /E /I flowforge-installer-x.y.z 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

On Linux, the installer will ask if you want to run FlowForge 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 FlowForge directory to that user.

Configuring FlowForge

The default FlowForge configuration is provided in the file /opt/flowforge/etc/flowforge.yml.

For more details on the options available, see the configuration guide.

Before running FlowForge (Windows Only)

Some Windows applications like Hyper-V and WSL can reserve TCP ports. This can prevent FlowForge from running correctly. If necessary, adjust the starting port variable driver.options.start_port in the FlowForge configuration yaml file.

You can see which ports are reserved on a Windows machine using the command...

netsh interface ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

IMPORTANT: When modifying start_port (default 7880), be aware that FlowForge uses port numbers incrementally and in pairs separated by 1000. e.g. If start_port is set to 6000, it will allocate ports 6000 and 7000 to the 1st project then ports 6001 and 7001 to the next project (and so on).

INFO: Ports between 10000 ~ 49000 on windows are typically not included in the default reservation

Running FlowForge

If you have installed FlowForge as a service, it can be started by running:

service flowforge start

To run it manually, you can use:

Linux/MacOS:
```
/opt/flowforge/bin/flowforge.sh
```
Windows:

Use the file bin\flowforge.bat in the FlowForge directory

First Run Setup

Once FlowForge is started, you can access the platform in your browser at http://localhost:3000.

The first time you access it, the platform will take you through creating an
administrator for the platform and other configuration options.

For more information, follow this guide.

Arm6 devices, such as the original Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W are not supported. ↩︎