#  Installing Device Agent

#  Prerequisites

NodeJS of version 20 or later is recommended, through the device agent supports NodeJS v14 or later.

The Device Agent can be installed on most Linux distributions, Windows, and MacOS.

#  Installing the Device Agent

The Device Agent is published to the public npm repository as @flowfuse/device-agent.

Note: since the 1.13 release, the package name was updated. See the updating section for details if you are using the flowforge scoped package.

It can be installed as a global npm module. This will ensure the agent command is on the path:

#  Linux/MacOS

sudo npm install -g @flowfuse/device-agent

#  Windows (run elevated^[1])

npm install -g @flowfuse/device-agent

#  Docker

Or you can chose to run the Docker container. When you do, you'll need to mount the device.yml obtained when Registering the device:

docker run --mount type=bind,src=/path/to/device.yml,target=/opt/flowfuse-device/device.yml -p 1880:1880 flowfuse/device-agent:latest

Or you can chose to run the Docker-Compose via a docker-compose.yml file. When you do, you'll need to mount the device.yml as in Docker obtained when Registering the device:

version: '3.9'

services:
  device:
    image: flowfuse/device-agent:latest
    ports:
      - "1880:1880"
    volumes:
      - /path/to/device.yml:/opt/flowfuse-device/device.yml

#  Configuration

The agent configuration is provided by a device.yml file within its working directory.

#  Working directory

By default the agent uses /opt/flowfuse-device or c:\opt\flowfuse-device as its working directory. This can be overridden with the -d/--dir option.

The directory must exist and be accessible to the user that will be running the agent.

#  Linux/MacOS

sudo mkdir /opt/flowfuse-device
sudo chown -R $USER /opt/flowfuse-device

#  Windows (run elevated^[1:1])

mkdir c:\opt\flowfuse-device
icacls c:\opt\flowfuse-device /grant "user":F /T

where "user" is the service account that will run the device agent (ideally, this is NOT an admin account)

#  Listen Port

By default Node-RED will listen to port 1880. The device agent has a flag to change this behaviour and listen on another port of choosing: -p/--port. This can be useful for custom firewall rules, or when running multiple device agents on the same machine.

flowfuse-device-agent --port=1881

#  Upgrading the agent

To use the latest features on FlowFuse as well as on the edge device, it is advised to upgrade the device agent regularly.

With the 1.13 release of the Device Agent, it has moved to a new package on the npm repository and DockerHub.

• npm: @flowforge/flowforge-device-agent -> @flowfuse/device-agent
• Docker: flowforge/device-agent -> flowfuse/device-agent

For backwards compatibility we will continue to publish to both the old and new locations for a period of time, but we strongly encourage users to update to the new package to ensure you continue to receive the latest updates.

#  Linux/MacOS

sudo npm install -g @flowfuse/device-agent@latest

#  Windows (run elevated^[1:2])

npm install -g @flowfuse/device-agent@latest