Explain ssh like I'm five

Posted by gr4vem1nd

Hey y'all I'm very new to the self hosting stuff so sorry if this seems like a dumb question but here's the sitch; I used the Windows installer for Sparkbox, and when I hit finish it sent me to the page where you type in your bootstrap token. I never saw one so I figured I must've missed it, but I don't know how to ssh into the server to reprint it. The closest I've gotten gave me a "connection refused" error. I get if y'all reading this think I'm not the sharpest knife in the crayon box but I feel like I'm missing something so simple. Any help is greatly appreciated.

2 replies

Chris wrote:

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Chris wrote:

Not a dumb question at all, and you didn't miss anything simple. On a Windows install there is no SSH to connect to, which is why you got "connection refused". The Windows installer puts SparkBox in a small Linux machine (WSL) on that same PC, so you run the command right there instead: 1. On the PC where you ran the installer, open the Start menu, type PowerShell, right-click Windows PowerShell and choose "Run as administrator". 2. Paste this line and press Enter: wsl -d SparkBox -u root -- /opt/sparkbox/sparkbox bootstrap-token 3. It prints one line: that is your bootstrap token. Paste it into the Bootstrap token box on the dashboard page (http://localhost:8443), pick an admin password (8+ characters), and you're in. The token works only once, so don't post it here. If it says instead that the token has already been claimed, a password was already set: sign in with that one, or set a new one by running wsl -d SparkBox -u root and then, at the prompt that opens, /opt/sparkbox/sparkbox reset-password. Your apps and settings stay as they are. The installer does show this code on its last page and in its console window, but the dashboard page only told you to SSH in, which is the wrong advice for a Windows install. That page now gives this command too, from the next SparkBox update. If the command prints an error instead of a token, paste the error here.