So, I'm currently running ZimaOS with just a crafty server on my old laptop from college, but I want to build an ARR stack. If I were to run the command on the Zima server, would it clash and break it? Would it create its own lil app on the front page? Would it give me an error and do nothing? I'm a little nervous to just let it rip and see what happens. THANK YOUUUUU
10 replies
Chris wrote:
Good question, and no need to be nervous! SparkBox won't touch or break your Crafty server -- it installs its own set of Docker containers on their own ports and doesn't interfere with unrelated apps already running on the box. Before it does anything, the installer runs a preflight check for a handful of ports SparkBox needs (like 8443 for the dashboard, 9000 for Portainer, 51820/51821 for WireGuard); if one of those happens to already be in use, it just warns you and continues -- nothing gets killed or overwritten. If a conflict does show up, you can move the dashboard to a different port with SBDASHBOARDPORT before installing. So worst case is a warning to fix, not breakage. Give it a shot!
Chris wrote:
Not quite — SparkBox won't become an app inside ZimaOS's own App Store, because it isn't installed through ZimaOS at all. The installer just drops its own Docker containers onto the box and hands you a separate web dashboard on port 8443 (it prints the exact address at the end of the run — something like http://192.168.1.50:8443). That dashboard is SparkBox's real front page, and it has its own App Store where you toggle Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr and the rest on and off. So the apps live inside SparkBox's dashboard, not ZimaOS's app list, and your Crafty setup keeps working exactly as-is.
Chris wrote:
That's actually expected — and it's not your box, it's ZimaOS. ZimaOS doesn't ship apt-get (or the apt package manager at all), which is why sudo can't find it. SparkBox's installer verifies the release's signature with OpenSSL before installing anything, and it normally installs OpenSSL itself via apt/dnf/pacman. ZimaOS has none of those, so it can't — and it stopped to ask you to install it manually, which then can't work there either. That's a real gap in our installer, not a mistake on your end. Rather than hand you a guess, I'm flagging it to the team to sort out a proper ZimaOS path. In the meantime, a box on Ubuntu or Debian (any standard Linux with Docker) is the fully-supported route and it'll install cleanly.
Olorin wrote:
You could just backup/export your entire Crafty Controller directory to an external drive (could be a USB or something, doesnt matter). Then, what i would highly recommend, install a more supported OS (I recommend Ubuntu Server 24.04LTS). Everything would work pretty easily and theres a billion tutorials to set up an Ubuntu machine. Then you can just copy the Crafty Controller files back onto the machine, install Docker, spin up a new Crafty Controller container, and point it at the directory. Everything in your Crafty instance will be as if nothing happened. Youll just have a much more stable OS. However, if you're feeling risky and depending on your hardware, Proxmox would be a pretty solid choice as well. Then you could keep your Crafty Controller in its own environment and run SparkBox in a completely separate/isolated environment. Theres also an endless supply of tutorials for Proxmox. Highly recommend looking into it if youre serious about Homelabbing/self-hosting.
Chris wrote:
Good news — 1.6.554 fixed the ZimaOS dead-end you hit: the installer now detects a system with no package manager and says plainly what's supported, instead of pointing at 'install openssl' and stopping. Grab it from the dashboard (Settings → Updates → Update SparkBox) or sudo sparkbox upgrade. If anything still trips on your box, post the error line here and I'll take it from there.
astrodized wrote:
Would it show up similarly to an app from the App Store on ZimaOS?
astrodized wrote:
i ran into this error when trying to install also ignore anything about the crafty setup [SparkBox] SHA256 digest verified [SparkBox] openssl not found — installing for signature verification... [SparkBox] openssl is required for release signature verification but is not available. Install openssl and re-run. curl: (23) Failure writing output to destination, passed 4229 returned 114
Chris wrote:
That's the installer's signature check halting, not anything wrong with your box or your Crafty setup — your data is untouched. SparkBox verifies the downloaded release's cryptographic signature before it installs a single file, and that step needs OpenSSL. ZimaOS didn't have it and the installer couldn't pull it in automatically, so it stopped and asked you to install it. Open a terminal on the ZimaOS box and run: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y openssl Then re-run the installer — it should sail past that step. If it stops at the same message again, paste the full output and I'll dig in.
astrodized wrote:
This is what I get after inputting the command provided admin@ZimaOS:~ ➜ $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y openssl sudo: apt-get: command not found
astrodized wrote:
Thank you so much for the advice! I'll most likely look into Ubuntu throughout the week, but this definitely leads me in the right direction. I'm mostly looking into simple stuff for now, like small game servers and media, but I definitely want something future-proof that I can involve my whole house in.