Setup mode

[n8maninger]

If the user has not configured a seed or API password, hostd should enter a setup mode with a single endpoint that allows the user to configure the yaml file via the web UI instead of failing to start. After the user has completed the initial setup, hostd should start normally without needing to be restarted.

[n8maninger]

@ChrisSchinnerl @peterjan @alexfreska this is a feature I would like to discuss. We have this for the desktop apps, but configuring the apps on headless devices is still a friction point.

[ChrisSchinnerl]

That's interesting. Do you want to spin up the regular UI or a special page only for settings and submitting the config after which it gets written to disk and the actual UI and hostd get spin up?

[alexfreska]

The way I understand:

Pre setup:

• The daemon starts with 1 /api/setup endpoint.
• Also serves the regular UI as normal.
• The daemon can open the UI to a special route localhost:9980/setup.
  • This page is part of the regular UI but only interacts only with the /api/setup endpoint.

Post setup:

• On successful submission to /api/setup:
• The setup UI page closes itself.
• The daemon spins up the full API, without /api/setup.
• The daemon opens the normal UI root page localhost:9980/setup.
• Manually visiting the UI setup page would just 404/redirect back to root.

Is this in line with your thinking? Do you both envision this is as only for first time config? Or could the user visit this page post setup and modify the config/trigger restart?

[n8maninger]

That’s pretty much exactly the workflow I envisioned. A one time API and setup flow that disappears after it’s complete and writes a yaml config to disk. The regular UI will be redirected to a setup page since the user can’t login.

We could add a config endpoint to the regular API to update the YAML, but it should not expose the wallet seed.

[ChrisSchinnerl]

Since serving the regular UI doesn't make sense during the setup stage, should we just serve the setup page on localhost:9980? Then users can just visit the same URL they usually would without having to add the extra /setup. I imagine that is a bit nicer for when the daemon can't auto-open a browser.

[n8maninger]

@alexfreska would creating a distinct UI overcomplicate the UI packaging and build process? Having one external UI package is already a bit of a pain.

[alexfreska]

We can make the setup load on localhost:9980 (or at least instantly redirect etc). Yeah I would really want to make it part of the current UI so that we don't add more complexity to matching up all the versions and dependencies - this shouldn't prevent us from doing anything we need, including making it feel separate or loading on the same route etc.

[pcfreak30]

IMO if you do this on hostd, should probably apply it to renterd as well, 🤷‍♂ .