Inconsistent Docs, Missing Configs & WTF Behavior Have Me Fuming

[Xyz00777]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to keep this as formal as I can, but I’m absolutely raging right now—self-installing Ente has been one of the worst self-hosting experiences I’ve had in years. Here’s what’s driving me up the wall:

1. Installation with Docker (using Podman):
   1.1 I encountered multiple, conflicting deployment guides with no clear, consistent instructions.
   1.2 There’s no consolidated list of environment variables for the web container—only a handful hidden in the install script and a GitHub discussion thread.
   1.3 Where is the verbose-logging option? I’ve wasted over four hours now until i got it working completly chasing issues with not verbose enough container logs and no way to turn up verbosity.
2. Ports, FQDNs & Nginx Configuration:
   2.1 Please document exactly which ports map to which internal museum apps and their corresponding FQDNs.
   2.2 WTF am I getting forwarded to web.ente.io when I access my local instance on port 3001? I log in locally and end up on the public site with my user?! (edit: it looks like i accidentaly created an account there in my testing)—that’s unacceptable and masively confusing. Clarify and document this behavior immediately please!
3. The Ente CLI and user management:
   3.1 I understand providing a standalone binary, but also include the CLI in the museum container so I don’t need a separate system just to manage it.
   3.2 Make the endpoint URL configurable via an environment variable—don’t bury it in a static config file.
   3.3 why do i even have to use the cli and why cant i use a management web overview to manage all the things and a few additional settings like open for registration and also being able to invite users as example.
   3.4 why do i have to configure an user to be used for the cli when i have to define the admin email address either way?! than you could just request the password in that moment for the user, and for automations you could also add the password as an additional command variable.
4. add key encryption documentation
   4.1 PLEASE add the create own JWT and the other password documentation like it is in the self hosting shell to the documentation and dont expect that some random admin is installing go and cloning this repo and try to fix missing go dependencies! the commands from the shell script for creating them is absoluetly fine, please add them to the self hosting documentation.

I’m literally about to lose it at the moment. Please fix the documentation, configuration, and tooling so nobody else has to endure this nightmare. Thank you.

[dwipme]

@mngshm

[Xyz00777]

Oh and what i missed in my initial Post. Thanks for developing the software, i know that its hard and normally users are coming and create issues when they have problem (like me :D) but i still want to say thanks for doing it and open sourcing it, great job!

[mngshm]

I did not reply impulsively thinking I might get frustrated myself and unnecessarily use an unpleasant tone.

I have pushed a PR for what felt very necessary at the moment.

Docker fiasco

• https://help.ente.io/self-hosting/creating-accounts. Its a simple docker compose logs -f if you want a followed log output of museum, minIO and everything. There's nothing like "turn on verbosity", Museum already does that with logrus and logger and when you containerize museum, docker containers take custody of museum and those logs. Hence, docker compose logs is needed.

Redirects

• In the PR, I've put up information about environment variables and port mappings (should be merged sooner).
• Its clearly mentioned that Ente's production hosted instances of the web app are used by default for all the un-configured app endpoints and hence they'll always redirect you to say web.ente.io or auth.ente.io or albums.ente.io instead of you imagining that they'll automatically redirect to your IP or whatever.

About CLI:

The team hasn't planned much for the CLI and I don't think whatever you've listed there as should be done will be prioritized any sooner excluding the configuration of endpoints via env variable.

Regarding JWT

The keys are generated automatically in the script via /dev/urandom, and we never asked or mentioned in the docs that the user has to regenerate and modify the keys themselves.

[Xyz00777]

Hi mngshm,
thanks for the fast response and no problem, i should have also waited a few hours.

AW docker fiasco:

• yeah i tryied that but i had one specific issue (i dont remember what it was) that didnt logged anything but i was able to fix. and another issue who given out around 100 lines or error which i didnt realized because it looked exactly the same between switching the windows :D.
  AW Redirects:
• thanks for explicitly stating it again in the docu, now i just have to find out what is missing in my config :D
  AW CLI:
• no problem, it is just really confusing that i have to configure first an user to than be able to use the admin configurations instead of just putting them into the command line, but thats okay. but it would be really nice if the tool would be implemented into the museum container to not be needed to be installed additionaly.
  AW JWT:
• i was pretty sure that i seen a site in the documentation where this standed as a specific entry. But im not able to find it at the moment.
• but I found this two entrys:

  ente/server/configurations/local.yaml

  Line 205 in e8158ef

  # new keys. You can use `go run tools/gen-random-keys/main.go` for that.

  and https://help.ente.io/self-hosting/guides/external-s3#_2-set-up-the-credentials-env-file entrys.

Kind regards
Xyz

[mngshm]

AW docker fiasco:

Weird, can't guess what was causing this behavior. When you execute the command with all the dependencies on their places, it should really pull the images and start the containers without any problem. See, if you could replicate it somehow ? Can help after that.

it is just really confusing that i have to configure first an user to than be able to use the admin configurations instead of just putting them into the command line

Understandable and agreed, I have been there before joining Ente as an employee. But the nuance really is how can CLI by default get integrated with the instance and why does it have to by default find out the admin. That's where the catch is, because the whole idea of clients being able to configure their server endpoint comes in. But ack, the suggestion of merging cli into the single dockerfile (we'll think about it in the future).

i was pretty sure that i seen a site in the documentation where this standed as a specific entry. But im not able to find it at the moment.

must be the local.yaml. It recommends you to generate when you're going the manual way of setting up ente and not using the one-liner command. This is the other case

Maybe, going ahead deprecating those old instructions might be the best bet.

[mngshm]

Is this an identical error to you ?

https://discord.com/channels/948937918347608085/1215252276911018014/1369614036324323360