felhom.eu/documentation/runbooks/VOLUNTEER-first-hour.en.md

Felhom — your first hour (for volunteer testers)

ENGLISH TWIN of VOLUNTEER-first-hour.md, written by localisation slice 6 (R-561, 2026-09-2X). Same sections, same order, same steps, same warnings. It is a translation, not a rewrite: where the Hungarian says something that is stale or wrong, the English says what the screen actually shows and the difference is a register row, named in the session report — never a silent fix. The operator chooses the channel and approves the text. This header is for the operator.

Screen names are the dashboard's own English (controller/internal/i18n/locales/en.json): Launcher, Dashboard, Apps, Storage, Backup, Sharing, System monitor, Settings. The console text is the bilingual banner's English block, verbatim. The download step points at the English download page, felhom.eu/en/download (published 2026-09-18, R-559 — same installer and same checksum as the Hungarian page; a site gate refuses the two pages naming different ones).

What the operator must still do before sending this — unchanged from the Hungarian, and listed there in full: create the customer with the language set to English, create the Cloudflare tunnel and paste its token (R-494 — without it the dashboard address does not open), and hand over the Owner passphrase out of band.

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What the operator does first (not the volunteer's job)

1. Creates the customer on the hub (name, e-mail, domain), with the language set to English — the claim e-mail, the bind page and the box's first screen all follow that setting. The hub sends the connect e-mail by itself when the customer has an e-mail address and no box yet (at creation, when an address is added, and when an earlier box is deleted). There is no button to press; the customer page shows when it went out (R-509, 2026-09-15).
2. Creates the Cloudflare tunnel and enters its token on the customer's page — without it the dashboard address does not open (R-494).
3. Hands over the five-word "Owner passphrase" in person or in a message. No e-mail contains it.

What you will need

• A machine where all data will be erased (the install overwrites the chosen disk completely).
• A USB stick of at least 2 GB.
• A network cable to your router.
• The Owner passphrase (5 words) you received from Felhom.
• The e-mail account you gave to Felhom.

1. Download the installer (~1 minute)

Open https://felhom.eu/en/download and download the installer it names (about 1.7 GB). The page also gives the file's checksum (SHA-256).

Write it to a USB stick (Windows: Rufus, in "DD" mode; Mac/Linux: balenaEtcher).

2. Install (~15 minutes, about 3 of them copying)

Start the machine from the USB stick. The installer screens are in English — that is expected.

Screen	What to do
Felhom logo, two lines	Choose "Felhom telepítés / Install Felhom" (or wait; it starts by itself). The second line, "… (szöveges mód) / … (text mode)", installs exactly the same thing without the graphics — take it if the first one shows nothing.
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT	I agree
Target harddisk	The installer never chooses for you. It lists the machine's disks with their size and type; choose the one the system should go on — that disk will be erased. Unplug your external backup drive for the install. If there are several internal disks and you do not know which is the right one, stop and ask the operator.
Country / Timezone / Keyboard	Leave as they are
Root password	Enter a password of at least 8 characters, twice. You do not need to remember it — Felhom replaces it after the first start.
Administrator email	Type your own e-mail address (instead of mail@example.invalid)
Hostname (FQDN)	Change it, because the default is refused. Type: felhom.<your-domain> (the domain you got from Felhom)
IP address, Gateway, DNS	Leave as they are
Summary	Install
"Installation finished — reboot now?"	Remove the USB stick, then Reboot now

3. The first start (~2 minutes)

This screen is bilingual — Hungarian first, English under it. About 2 minutes later it shows:

Felhom — the box is ready and waiting to be paired. Pairing code: XXX-XXX

Write the pairing code down. It is printed once in each language; both are the same code.

4. Connect the box to your account (~2 minutes)

1. Open the e-mail with the subject "[Felhom] Connect your Felhom box" and follow the link in it (valid for 7 days).
2. Enter:
   • the pairing code from the box's screen;
   • the Owner passphrase (5 words) you received from the Felhom operator.
3. Leave the box switched on. The next e-mail arrives in about 3 minutes.

(Note: the box's screen keeps showing the pairing code after it is connected — this is a known fault, and you do not need to connect it again.)

5. Set up the dashboard (~1 minute)

1. Open the e-mail with the subject "[Felhom] Your Felhom server is up — setup code".
2. Follow the address in it (https://felhom.<your-domain>). If the address does not open, tell the operator.
3. On the "Set up the server" page enter the setup code (3 words, like word-word-word) and choose a password of at least 12 characters. This becomes your dashboard password.
4. If the code did not arrive: "Did not get the code? Ask for a new one" — it always goes to the same e-mail address.

6. Install your first two apps (~2 minutes)

1. On the dashboard: Apps. Find BookStack (a family wiki) and PrivateBin (encrypted notes), and select Install.
2. On the install page the only question is the subdomain — leave the default (wiki, paste). You do not need to write down the "Automatically generated values".
3. Start the install. BookStack takes about a minute, PrivateBin about 20 seconds.

7. The recovery code (~2 minutes) — do not skip this

The box sends an encrypted copy of your files to Felhom's remote storage. Only you get the key to that encryption: it is the recovery code. Until you create it, the remote backup does not start.

When the yellow bar appears (a few minutes after the setup), that is the moment. The box spends its first minutes preparing the remote storage, and until then it cannot create the code — which is why the bar only appears once it can. The bar says: "Remote backup is paused until you create your recovery code." If the bar is not there yet, install your first apps (the step before) and look again. If you open the page too early it says "The box is still getting ready — … in a few minutes …", and it refreshes itself.

1. Backup → Remote backup, or simply select "Create recovery code" on the bar.
2. Enter your dashboard password and start it. About half a minute.
3. The code is shown once and once only. Write it on paper and put it where you keep your important documents. A photo on your phone is not enough if the phone is lost too.

⚠ Felhom cannot get this code back for you. Not because we will not: your copies are encrypted so that we ourselves cannot open them. If the code is lost, the remote copies remain, but nobody — not us either — can open them again.

Once you are done, the bar disappears and the remote backup starts by itself.

8. Signing in to the apps for the first time

• BookStack: on the app's page the "First steps" give the address as wiki.DOMAIN — put your own domain in place of DOMAIN (known fault). Sign in: admin@admin.com / password. Change it straight away: your profile at the top right → Settings → password and e-mail.
• PrivateBin: there is no sign-in. Type your text, select Send, and share the link you get — the key is in the link, and the server does not see the content.

9. Backups

• Backup → Overview: you will see two yellow warnings ("only one copy is made", "it is on the same disk") — both are true: until there is a second drive or a remote backup, this does not protect you against a disk failure.
• Backup → Apps → Back up now: about 20 seconds, after which the date updates.
• An individual app's "Backup 2 settings" page may say that its data is "already part of the full system backup (PBS)" — this is not true on every box (known fault). The Overview page is the accurate one.

10. Restoring

Backup → Restore: choose the app and the backup, tick the "I understand" box, Start restore. The app stops for about half a minute, then starts again in the state of the last backup.

11. Removing an app

Apps: first Stop, then Remove appears. The dialog lists what will be deleted in any case, and you can also tick the box to delete the backups.

12. A power cut

If the power goes, the box comes back by itself; after about 2 minutes every app is running on the same version it was before. You will have to sign in to the dashboard again.

13. If you mistype the code

The setup page rejects it with "Wrong or expired code" — type it again. After five wrong attempts it locks for 15 minutes ("Too many attempts — try again in 15 minutes."). You can ask for a new code with the "Did not get the code? Ask for a new one" link, and the sign-in page's "Forgot password" link leads to the same place.

If you get stuck

Write to support@felhom.eu, and send a screenshot if you can.