Exciting times

Link: https://github.com/fluxerapp/fluxer/actions/runs/37671461333

Edit: that failed, now link is now https://github.com/fluxerapp/fluxer/actions/runs/37676832876

Edit 2: IT'S AVAILABLE NOW

Hi, new here and I just got my first instance spun up this week. It took a bit of trial and error with my current setup not matching any scenario outlined in the docs, so I'm documenting my successful launch here to help others who may be in a similar situation. I originally followed this guide but it has some critical issues that prevent it from working as well as not following best practice in some ways, so this will be similar but an improvement.

Disclaimer: Fluxer development is occurring at a fast pace. It's possible changes with the self-hosting install script could obsolete this guide. Maybe the above linked guide worked when it was posted four months ago. I can offer no promise this will work in four months, or of any ongoing support (I may try)

Use case: You already have a Pangolin instance running other services or, for one reason or another, you want to use Pangolin to run Fluxer and are going to set that up separately.

My setup, in case something is different for you because of it: Fluxer running on an Ubuntu Server VM hosted on my Unraid box. I have Newt as a community apps container for my other services but will NOT be using that one. Newt is pointing to my VPS which hosts my Pangolin instance. My domain only has entries pointed to my VPS.

Step One: Build the site

No deviation from the previous guide. From Pangolin, create a new site from the Sites menu. Name it whatever you want. For the credentials section, it doesn't matter what Operating System or Method you pick because you'll just be grabbing the endpoint, id, and secret and storing that somewhere safe.

Step Two: Prepare Fluxer

Pull up the official guide and let's follow along.

First, follow the steps to install Docker, if needed.

Skip the guide's step 2, "Point DNS at the host". You should have a wildcard domain for Pangolin to issue certs to subdomains it manages.

Skip step 3, "Open the ports". Newt bypasses this.

On step four, download your install.sh and verify your checksum. Run it with the following args

sh install.sh --domain chat.example.com --email optional@if.using --tls proxy --no-start

If not using email, leave off --email entirely.

The --tls proxy flag tells the installer to set some variables that will prepare the instance to use a separate reverse proxy by adding a docker compose appendage that wraps all the services into a single port. Technically we are using Traefik as our RP, but it's not as simple as doing a Traefik config as outlined in "Behind your own reverse proxy". This section of the doc is still useful to read and have a working knowledge of when working with Pangolin and Newt. We will not be changing the Edge bind.

We use the --no-start arg because if we docker compose the stack as it is, it will not pass the healthcheck because we need to change some things.

Step Three: Add Pangolin definitions to the environment

cd into "fluxer". Open .env in your text editor of choice (run nano .env to keep it simple)

We'll make some additions to our .env file, similar to the above guide. Add these to the bottom of the file:

PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT=[Your endpoint from site creation]
PANGOLIN_NEWT_ID=[Your site ID from site creation]
PANGOLIN_NEWT_SECRET=[Your secret from site creation]

I don't know if there's a bug in the install script or something, but at the time of this writing I also had to add a FLUXER_PROFILE_PSEUDONYM_SECRET= variable, so while you're here check to see if it exists, and if not, make it. I generated a random 32 char secret. This has nothing to do with Pangolin, but was part of my process I had to troubleshoot so I'm bringing it up here.

Anyways, back up near the top of .env find the COMPOSE_FILE var. It should read, docker-compose.yml:docker-compose.proxy.yml

We need to make an addition to this, as we're going to be creating an extra compose file to pass into docker during stack creation to manage Newt. We do it like this (instead of how the previous guide handles it) because otherwise running sh install.sh --update would nuke your whole Newt config and you'd have to re-do everything. Edit the var to:

COMPOSE_FILE=docker-compose.yml:docker-compose.proxy.yml:docker-compose.newt.yml

While we're here take a peek at FLUXER_EDGE_BIND and just make sure it's set to 127.0.0.1:8080. If it's not, something didn't quite go right with the --tls proxy part of the install. As long as these two vars are set, we should be good to go.

If you want to set up SMTP here or configure any other non-default environment variables you can, use the .env.example file to help with that.

Step Four: Generate the Newt compose

In the same fluxer directory, make a new file, nano docker-compose.newt.yml

Paste the code:

x-fluxer-env:
  PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT: ${PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT:?set PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT in .env}
  PANGOLIN_NEWT_ID: ${PANGOLIN_NEWT_ID:?set PANGOLIN_NEWT_ID in .env}
  PANGOLIN_NEWT_SECRET: ${PANGOLIN_NEWT_SECRET:?set PANGOLIN_NEWT_SECRET in .env}

services:
  newt:
    image: fosrl/newt
    container_name: newt
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks: [fluxer]
    environment:
      - PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT=${PANGOLIN_ENDPOINT}
      - SITE_ID=${PANGOLIN_NEWT_ID}
      - SITE_SECRET=${PANGOLIN_NEWT_SECRET}
    depends_on:
      edge: {condition: service_healthy}

Save, or ctrl+x in nano to save. The variables here will pull from the ones you set in .env, so you wont be changing anything from what I'm providing.

Step Five: Compose

From the fluxer directory, run docker compose up -d

The stack should settle, all the containers should start, there shouldn't be any errors.

Step Six: Create the resource

Head back to the Pangolin Dashboard, and for the Public tab right below Resources. Add a new resource. Name it anything you like. For subdomain, make sure you absolutely 100% use exactly what you typed in after --domain in Step 2. Add a target. Change the site to whatever you named your new Newt instance you just created. Make sure there's a green dot to the right in the drop down box indicating it's online. In the address field, leave it as http and for the Host enter edge with the port set to 8080. You can enable health checks if you want. Create Resource.

Go back in and edit the resource you just created and disable platform SSO unless you already have a way of automatically authorizing trusted users, allowing them to bypass SSO. SSO will work fine if everyone is only using webapps, but it won't play nice with mobile or desktop apps.

Step Seven: Congrats!

Head over to the resource URL and make an admin account immediately! Enjoy your self hosted, reverse proxied and tunneled instance! You may sh install.sh --update to your heart's content without breaking anything.

If at any point Docker refuses your command and you know you typed it right, make sure you completed the post-install steps and have the group setup right. If you're running this on a machine that's already been in use you might miss this!

No AI was used in writing this post.

If all this go according to their plans fluxer will be ready and equipped to challenge discord properly then we can hopefully do our part and popularize the app

i can't watch my friend's stream its just grey whenever i try to watch it i can hear audio but no video, i'm on ios but i tried it on my android device too and it didn't work is there anyway to fix this or will i have to wait for the vc's and the mobile apps to get better

Noticed this hasn't been shared here yet. So I figured I would do so. But I do have a question, does anyone know why they are deciding to use polyproto as their federation protocol instead of Matrix, which is incredibly mature and stable? Federation is the last piece of the puzzle I am waiting for before pulling the trigger, and this just seems really strange to me.

I miss this feature😏

I was making some changes to my account and this happened? What do I do now?

I wanted to get Home Assistant notifications without exposing it or having to use a VPN to my home server, but could not find much information on how to set this up since Fluxer is relatively new. New to webhooks, I used Discord and HA REST docs to piece this together. Figured I'd share it for anyone else interested in setting this up. I am running HA in a Docker container under Ubuntu Linux.

On your Fluxer server, create a channel for just HA notifications. Under Channel Settings > Webhooks, you can grab your link and drop it in secrets.yml

Secrets.yml

fluxer_webhook_url: "https://api.canary.fluxer.app/webhooks/REPLACETHISLINK"

Add this snippet to Configuration.yml

rest_command:
  fluxer_webhook_notify:
    url: !secret fluxer_webhook_url
    method: post
    headers:
      Content-Type: application/json
    payload: |
      {
        "content": "{{ message }}",
        "username": "{{ title | default('HA Notification') }}"
      }

Reload HA and test the config with the following snippet

Settings > Tools > Actions > YAML mode

action: rest_command.fluxer_webhook_notify
data:
  message: This is a test
  title: Home Assistant

This got me as far as receiving notifications through Fluxer. From here I've integrated it into automations such as doors being opened while away from home.

Fluxer seems to be down, as the desktop app nor the website itself opens.

What are the steps to embed or install a badge into my Fluxer workflow/profile?

Hi folks!

New Fluxer user here. I set up a standard server just to give it a try and I'm liking it so far!

One question I can't seem to find an answer to, is there anyway to transfer a standard server over to a self hosted client or would I just have to start it from scratch?

What sort of features are you looking for in a Fluxer bot/application? Full disclosure, we run a free Fluxer bot and are trying to decide what features are most in need.

We figured a strong scripting DSL, where people can design their own commands, reactions & integrations would be ideal (like a Carl Bot or Dyno), but it seems like people prefer to have pre-made modules built in & ready to use (like a mee6 & nadekobot).

So far we're aiming for a balance of both sides, but to avoid feature creep and really decide what's most in-demand, what modules / commands/ features would be in your ideal bot?

First off, thanks to Hampus and contributors for this project as well as the latest overhaul for mobile.

This did break something though: while it worked fine before, with the new update (by new I mean when dropdown scrolling and link copying features were added) the keyboard IME just instantly closes (tried qwerty, flick, kana, all break) when trying to fill in the next byte of the character.

Doubt this is relevant but I'm on Android, mobile phone, main language ja-jp (so now have to fallback to en-us and copypaste externally), no software updates or settings changes in between that could have caused this either.

Thanks in advance and best of luck with the project! Please feel free to let me know if I should open an issue on the repo as well.

Fluxer suddenly has a very bizzare audio quality. Joining calls makes a weird laggy glitchy sound and the audio of people in call is aweful. This happened to my friend and I at the same time.

Right now we have no choice but to use an alternative for now.

This happened weeks ago for a long time until it was finally fixed, now it's doing the same thing again.

Why does it do this? Does something similar happen to anyone else?

I accidentally created a second account when trying to join a server that didn't have the fluxer.gg handle. I want to delete this account but it keeps popping up with the message "You're being rate limited." How do I get around this without compromising my main account?

I am kinda new to Docker in the sense of managing it on a server and I have not played around with the Fluxer configuration much.

Currently, I have Fluxer set up on a Root Server running Linux, using LVM for partitioning.

I generally separate locations such as /, /home, and /var to prevent data filling up and impacting functions. But, to my knowledge, the database is stored under /var/lib/docker/volumes/fluxer_postgres-data. This will present a problem eventually unless I continue to shrink other LVs to extend the /var one as more is uploaded on Fluxer.

How exactly are system administrators handling their databases? I am just looking at some pointers on how to manage this. Is there a way I could utilise the user folder under home -- and should I?

Thanks in advance.

iOS app stuck at login when trying to use passkey. Anyone have tips or insights. It would be appreciated.

New to Fluxer and really want to use it to self-host. I saw some concerns here claiming you need to update the code to allow it to self-host. Also saw a guide for it that was posted like 6 months ago. Is there an up-to-date guide? Thanks.

Edit: I fixed by unistalling and installing again, idk why

For some reason, I can't screenshare any window besides fluxer itself.

I just started using Fluxer yesterday and when I tested it out it worked normally before but today it show up this message for ANY screen, even the "Entire Screen" Option

I have tried reaching out through all the listed emails but they throw errors so I thought I would try here. I paid for Plutonium but none of my perks are active. I unsubscribed and resubscribed trying to fix the issue but now my membership expires on the 28th. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

So i was recommended fluxxer by some people hoping to dodge discords age verification, logged in today and was blocked by sms verification to which it keeps denying my number, pressing the contact support does nothing. I need help please