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flexFS

free.flexfs

free.flexfs is the server for flexFS Community edition. It manages a single volume and provides the same deploy endpoint as the Enterprise admin server for mount client installation and auto-updates. All flags are public.

Subcommands

Section titled “Subcommands”

| Subcommand | Description | |---|---| | deinit creds | Remove the credentials file | | deinit systemd | Remove the systemd service unit | | init creds | Initialize the credentials file | | init systemd | Create and enable a systemd service unit | | license | Print license information | | start | Start the server | | version | Print the build version |

Usage

Section titled “Usage”
Terminal window
free.flexfs start [flags]

Persistent Flags

Section titled “Persistent Flags”

| Flag | Type | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | --credsFile | string | ~/.flexfs/free/creds | Credentials file path |

Start Flags

Section titled “Start Flags”

| Flag | Type | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | --bindAddr | string | 0.0.0.0:443 | Address and port to bind | | --noInstaller | bool | false | Disable the /deploy/install-mount.sh installer endpoint | | --noSSL | bool | false | Disable SSL for the REST API | | --sslCert | string | ~/.flexfs/ssl/cert | SSL certificate file path | | --sslKey | string | ~/.flexfs/ssl/key | SSL private key file path |

Init Creds

Section titled “Init Creds”
Terminal window
free.flexfs init creds [flags]

Initializes a credentials file for the server with block storage and metadata configuration.

| Flag | Type | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | --api | string | "" | Block storage API (e.g., s3, gcs, azure, oci) | | --blockAddr | string | "" | Custom block storage endpoint (optional) | | --blockPass | string | "" | Block storage password (optional) | | --blockUser | string | "" | Block storage username (optional) | | --bucket | string | "" | Block storage bucket | | --force | bool | false | Overwrite existing creds file | | --metaAddr | string | "" | Metadata server address (host:port) | | --prefix | string | flexfs | Block storage key prefix | | --provider | string | "" | Cloud provider (e.g., aws, gcp, azure, oci) | | --region | string | "" | Cloud region (e.g., us-east-1) | | --retention | int64 | 604800 | Block retention period in seconds |

Init Systemd

Section titled “Init Systemd”
Terminal window
sudo free.flexfs init systemd [flags]

Creates and enables a systemd service unit (flexfs-free.service) for the server. Requires root.

| Flag | Type | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | --force | bool | false | Overwrite existing systemd unit file | | --now | bool | false | Start the service immediately after enabling | | --startFlags | string | "" | Additional flags to pass to the start command |

Deinit Creds

Section titled “Deinit Creds”
Terminal window
free.flexfs deinit creds [flags]

Removes the credentials file for the server. If the credentials file is referenced by a systemd unit, the command refuses unless --force is passed, in which case it removes the references too.

| Flag | Type | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | --force | bool | false | Remove creds even if referenced by systemd (removes references too) |

Deinit Systemd

Section titled “Deinit Systemd”
Terminal window
sudo free.flexfs deinit systemd

Removes the systemd service unit (flexfs-free.service) for the server. Requires root.

Differences from admin.flexfs

Section titled “Differences from admin.flexfs”

The Community server differs from the Enterprise admin server in the following ways:

  • Manages a single volume (no multi-volume support)
  • No configure.flexfs support
  • No proxy group management
  • No end-to-end encryption
  • No dynamic CSI provisioning
  • No volume quotas or volume tokens with mount-path scoping

All CLI utilities (analyze.flexfs, dedup.flexfs, find.flexfs, manage.flexfs, update.flexfs) work with the Community edition. Local on-disk writeback caching (--diskWriteback) is available on the mount client to help mitigate object storage latency.