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punktfunk/docs-site/content/docs/web-console.md
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enricobuehlerandClaude Opus 5 365caa23be fix(plugins): plugin output reaches the console's log page, and /tmp is no longer hidden from the runner
A user could not get the VirtualHere plugin to use their VirtualHere client
and asked, reasonably, where the logs were. There was no good answer, and the
reason they were stuck turned out to be ours.

**The runner could not see /tmp.** `punktfunk-scripting.service` set
PrivateTmp=yes, which hands the unit a private tmpfs. But integrating with
things already running on the box is the entire job of a plugin, and on Linux
those talk over /tmp: VirtualHere's client IPC is the FIFO pair /tmp/vhclient +
/tmp/vhclient_response, X11 is /tmp/.X11-unix. So the plugin launched the vendor
binary happily and could then never reach the daemon behind it — while the same
command worked perfectly in the operator's own shell, because that shell has the
real /tmp. No config change could fix it, which is exactly the loop the report
described. PrivateTmp is now off, with /tmp added to ReadWritePaths (which
ProtectSystem=strict would otherwise make read-only).

**Plugin logs now land in the console.** Plugins are not host child processes —
the runner is a separate bun process that import()s each plugin in-process — so
nothing they print passed through the host's tracing, and the console's Logs
page could not show a single plugin line. The fallback was journalctl on Linux;
on Windows the runner's scheduled task writes no log file at all, so a failing
plugin was diagnosable only by stopping the task and re-running the runner by
hand. Both mean shell access on the host box, which is what the console exists
to avoid — and it left the one question a stuck user asks with no answer.

So the runner now tees its output to POST /api/v1/plugins/logs, and those lines
join the host's own ring under one cursor, targeted plugin:<name>. The console
grows a Host/Plugins switch beside the level filter; an empty Plugins view says
the thing that is actually usually wrong (the runner isn't running) rather than
"adjust the filter".

The shipper keeps stdout authoritative — journald and foreground output are
unchanged whatever the host is doing — and is built so that logging can never
hurt the thing being logged: it never throws into a caller, holds a bounded
queue that drops oldest and then says how many, backs off when the host is away
(a restart is normal), and re-sends a batch the host failed to take. Lines
logged while a POST is in flight are kept, which cost one round to get right:
the first version held its recursion guard across the await and silently dropped
exactly the lines a busy plugin produces.

Runner lines that report a failure (a refused unit file, a crashed plugin, a
give-up) now go out at warn/error instead of all arriving as INFO, so the
console's level filter means something for them.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 15:47:51 +02:00

120 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown

---
title: The Web Console
description: Enable the Punktfunk browser console, read or change its login password, arm PIN pairing, and what every page in it does.
---
The web console is the browser UI for a Punktfunk host — live status, pairing, display policy, the
game library, logs, plugins and host updates. It ships as the **`punktfunk-web`** systemd user unit
on Linux and runs under the **Punktfunk Host service** on Windows, and serves on **`https://<host-ip>:47992`**
(HTTPS with the host's own self-signed identity cert — your browser warns once; trust it and
continue). It's the surface you expose on the LAN to administer the host; the host's own management
API (47990) keeps every admin action loopback-only and off-loopback serves only read-only status +
game-library browsing to paired clients.
> New here? Read [Security & Safe Use](/docs/security) first — a streaming host is remote control of
> the machine, so keep it on a trusted LAN or VPN and require pairing.
## Enable the console
- **Linux packages (apt / RPM / Bazzite):** on Ubuntu the host package is `punktfunk-host`
and on Fedora/Bazzite it's `punktfunk`; either way it *recommends* `punktfunk-web`, so your
package manager pulls the console in with the host (the Bazzite sysext image already contains
it). Enable and start it as your desktop user, then open the URL:
```sh
systemctl --user enable --now punktfunk-web
# then browse to https://<host-ip>:47992
```
- **Arch / CachyOS (pacman):** the console is an *optional* package here, and pacman never installs
optional dependencies — so install it yourself from the same repo the host came from (see
[Arch Linux](/docs/arch)), then enable it exactly as above. Take it as a full `-Syu`, never a bare
`pacman -S`, so you don't end up on a partial upgrade:
```sh
sudo pacman -Syu punktfunk-web
systemctl --user enable --now punktfunk-web
```
- **Windows host:** the installer sets up the console and its runtime; the Punktfunk Host service
runs it and automatically brings it back if it ever stops. There is nothing to enable — open
`https://<this-PC>:47992`.
- **SteamOS host:** the install script builds and starts the console as a user service for you. It
prints the URL when it finishes.
## Login password
The console is password-protected. Where that password lives and how you change it depends on the
host platform.
**Linux packages (apt / RPM / Bazzite).** On first start `punktfunk-web-init` generates a random
password and saves it to `~/.config/punktfunk/web-password` (as `PUNKTFUNK_UI_PASSWORD=…`). Read it
back from the init service's journal or straight from the file:
```sh
journalctl --user -u punktfunk-web-init | sed -n 's/.*password generated: //p'
sed -n 's/^PUNKTFUNK_UI_PASSWORD=//p' ~/.config/punktfunk/web-password
```
To set your own, edit that file (`PUNKTFUNK_UI_PASSWORD=<your-password>`) and restart the console:
`systemctl --user restart punktfunk-web`.
**SteamOS host.** Same idea, but the install script writes the generated password to
`~/.config/punktfunk/web.env` and prints it at the end of the install run:
```sh
sed -n 's/^PUNKTFUNK_UI_PASSWORD=//p' ~/.config/punktfunk/web.env
```
Edit that file and `systemctl --user restart punktfunk-web` to change it.
**Windows host.** You choose the password during install — a secure random default is pre-filled and
shown again on the installer's final page. It's stored in `%ProgramData%\punktfunk\web-password` (as
`PUNKTFUNK_UI_PASSWORD=…`), readable only by Administrators and SYSTEM. To change it, edit the file
and restart the Punktfunk Host service (which runs the console) in an **elevated** PowerShell:
```powershell
notepad "$env:ProgramData\punktfunk\web-password" # set PUNKTFUNK_UI_PASSWORD=<your-password>
punktfunk-host service restart
```
Forgot it? See [Forgot your Password?](/docs/forgot-password).
## Arm pairing
The host **requires PIN pairing** by default (secure on a LAN). To connect the first time, open the
console, log in, then open **Pairing** in the sidebar and click **Pair a device**. The host shows a
one-time 4-digit PIN — enter it on your [client](/docs/clients) to pair. If the device already tried
to connect it appears under **Waiting for approval** instead; approving it pairs it immediately, no
PIN needed. See [Pairing & Trust](/docs/pairing) for the full trust model and how to approve or
remove devices later.
## What's in it
Nine destinations in the sidebar (a **More** tab on a phone holds the last five):
- **Dashboard** — live status: whether video and audio are streaming, the active sessions with
their codec, resolution, frame rate and bitrate, which games are running, and how many clients
are paired. Buttons here stop a session or ask the encoder for a fresh keyframe.
- **Host** — this host's identity (hostname, OS, local IP, version, unique id), the codecs it
advertises, its ports, the **Updates** card (see [Updating the Host](/docs/updating)), the
**GPUs** card — Automatic, or prefer one GPU for capture and encode, applied to the next session
— and the compositor backends it found.
- **Virtual displays** — the policy for the display each session gets, and the Streamed screen
picker. See [Virtual displays](/docs/virtual-displays).
- **Library** — the games every client sees: turn a launcher source on or off, add or edit a custom
title with its own art and launch command. See [Your game library](/docs/game-library).
- **Performance** — arm a capture, run a session, stop it, and read the recording back as
per-stage latency, throughput and health graphs.
- **Logs** — the host's recent log stream *and your plugins'*: follow it live, filter by level or
producer, search it, and download or share it for a bug report. Plugin lines are tagged
`plugin:<name>` and the **Host / Plugins** switch isolates either side.
- **Pairing** — arm a PIN, approve or deny devices waiting for approval, and unpair a device. A
second PIN box for [Moonlight/GameStream](/docs/moonlight) clients appears only when this host
runs the GameStream plane.
- **Plugins** — the plugin store's **Browse**, **Installed** and **Sources** tabs plus the plugin
runner switch; an installed plugin with a UI gets its own entry below. See
[Plugins](/docs/plugins).
- **Settings** — the console's language, and **Sign out**.