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

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

free.flexfs start [flags]

Persistent Flags

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

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

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

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

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

sudo free.flexfs deinit systemd

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

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.