Libre Crafts

Quick Start

Congratulations on your purchase of LibreCrafts’ FreedomBox hardware. Here are the steps to setup the FreedomBox as a server at home.

Connect to Internet

Plug one end of your Ethernet cord into your FreedomBox’s Ethernet WAN port, and plug the other end into your router.

Connect to TV/Monitor (Optional)

Optionally, connect a monitor or a TV along with a keyboard and a mouse.

Connect to Power

Connect the power cable. FreedomBox will power on automatically. Otherwise, press the power button. You may not immediately see the power LED glowing. It may take a few seconds.

Open Web Interface

After the FreedomBox starts up (usually takes a few seconds), you can access its web interface through a web browser running on another machine in the same network as FreedomBox. The address is usually https://freedombox.local. See the section below for finding FreedomBox web address.

Bypass Browser Warning

On accessing FreedomBox’s web interface your browser will warn you that it communicates securely but that it regards the security certificate for doing so as invalid. This is a fact you need to accept because the certificate is auto generated on the box and therefore “self-signed” (the browser might also use words such as “untrusted”, “not private”, “privacy error” or “unknown issuer/authority”). Telling your browser that you are aware of this might involve pressing buttons such as “I understand the Risks”, “proceed to … (unsafe)” or “Add exception”. After the initial setup this certificate can be changed to a proper one using the Let’s Encrypt.

Start First Setup

The first time you access the FreedomBox web interface, you will see a welcome page. Click the “Start Setup” button to continue.

Create Administrator Account

The next page asks you to provide a user name and password. Fill in the form, and then click “Create Account.”

Enable Frequent Feature Updates

After completing the form, you will be logged in to FreedomBox’s web interface and asked if you wish to receive more frequent updates (recommended).

Next Steps

Setup is complete. Now you can examine and possibly update several key configuration items or see which apps are available. Until you dismiss them, notifications accessible from the menu bar will remind you to review the key configuration items.

Now you can try any of the Apps that are available on FreedomBox.

Finding FreedomBox web address

FreedomBox’s web interface can typically be reached using the address http://freedombox.local using a browser on another computer in the same network that supports mDNS (GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, or Windows with mDNS software installed). If that does not work, see the following alternative options.

  • If your computer is connected to a monitor and FreedomBox is able to display text to it, then the login prompt shows the web address. It looks like this:

    Debian GNU/Linux 13 freedombox tty1

    FreedomBox

    To start using FreedomBox and to create an account, access using a web browser
    one of the following URLs.

    http://freedombox.local/
    http://192.168.0.2/
    http://[fe80::7207:12ff:fe34:5678]/

    ...

    freedombox login:
  • If your computer is connected directly to the FreedomBox through a second (LAN) ethernet port, you can browse to: http://freedombox/ or http://10.42.0.1/.
  • If you know your way around the router’s web interface, you can look up the IP address of the FreedomBox there, and browse to that address such as https://<ipaddress>.
  • If none of these methods are available, then you will need to figure out the IP address of your FreedomBox. You can use the “nmap” program from your computer to find its IP address:

    nmap -p 80 --open -sV 192.168.0.0/24

    In the above example, replace the ip/netmask with the one that your router uses. In most cases you can look at your current IP address, and change the last digits with zero to find your home network, like so: XXX.XXX.XXX.0/24 Your FreedomBox will show up as an IP address with an open tcp port 80 using Apache httpd service on Debian, such as the example below which would make it accessible at http://192.168.0.165:

    Nmap scan report for 192.168.0.165
    Host is up (0.00088s latency).
    PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
    80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.4.17 ((Debian))
  • If nmap does not find anything with the above command, you can try replacing 192.168.0.0/24 with 10.42.0.255/24.

    nmap -n -sP 10.42.0.255/24

    The scan report will show something similar to the following:

    Nmap scan report for 10.42.0.1
    Host is up (0.00027s latency).
    Nmap scan report for 10.42.0.50
    Host is up (0.00044s latency).

    In this example, the FreedomBox is accessible at http://10.42.0.50 (10.42.0.1 is my laptop).

Finding your way around

Front page

The front page is the page that you will see when accessing the web root of your FreedomBox. You can also access it by clicking the FreedomBox logo in the top-left corner of the FreedomBox’s web interface.

The front page includes shortcuts to apps that have been installed and are enabled. For web apps, clicking the shortcut will take you directly to the app’s web page. For other services, clicking the shortcut will show more information about the service.

Apps menu

The Apps menu can be accessed by clicking the grid icon, next to the FreedomBox logo. This page lists all of the apps that are available for installing on FreedomBox. Click the name of an app to visit its page, where you can install and configure it. Currently installed and enabled apps are shown above the remaining available apps.

Help menu

A drop-down Help menu can be accessed by clicking the question mark icon near the top-right corner. The menu includes helpful links and the FreedomBox manual.

System menu

The System menu can be accessed by clicking the gear icon in the top-left corner. It includes a number of pages related to system configuration.

User menu

In the top-right corner, the name of the currently logged-in user is shown. A drop-down menu includes options for editing the current user or logging out of the user interface.

Burger menu

FreedomBox’s web interface is responsive. When the display or browser window is very narrow, menu options may be hidden.

That is because the top menu options are collapsed into the burger icon shown at the top right corner of the window. Click on it to display a drop-down menu.

Troubleshooting

  1. For more detailed instructions and translations of this page, see the Quick Start page from FreedomBox documentation.
  2. See the full FreedomBox manual.
  3. Find Support.