Install the daemon¶

The daemon is a normal Python program. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, needs no service manager, and keeps all of its state in two files next to where you start it.

Requirements¶

Component	Requirement
Daemon	Python 3.11 or newer
Network	The daemon and the Presto on the same LAN
Disk	A few megabytes for the SQLite history

The daemon needs the cryptography package to encrypt the provider keys it stores. Installing the package brings it in.

Install¶

The package is on PyPI as presto-ai-dash. pipx keeps it in its own environment and puts the presto-ai-dash command on your path:

pipx install presto-ai-dash
presto-ai-dash --version

To upgrade later, run pipx upgrade presto-ai-dash. The admin page's Status tab and a blue arrow on the Presto tell you when a newer release is out; neither upgrades anything. A release candidate is not picked up by pipx upgrade: name it, for example pipx install --force "presto-ai-dash==0.50.0rc5".

pip install presto-ai-dash works as well, inside a virtual environment you made yourself. If the presto-ai-dash command is not on your path, every command on this page also works as python -m presto_ai_dash.app.

From a checkout (to change the code)¶

cd daemon
python -m venv .venv

# Windows
.venv\Scripts\activate
# macOS or Linux
source .venv/bin/activate

pip install -e .

If you prefer a virtual environment at the top of the repository instead, create it there and install from the daemon directory:

python -m venv .venv
.venv/Scripts/python -m pip install -e daemon

Create a configuration file¶

The daemon reads a TOML file. Create one named dash.toml in the folder you will start the daemon from. (A checkout also has an annotated copy to start from: examples/config.example.toml.)

At a minimum, set daemon.shared_token. That token is the key the Presto presents to the daemon. If you leave it empty the daemon generates a strong one at startup and prints it to the log once. To choose your own, generate it rather than inventing it:

python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(24))"

[daemon]
host = "0.0.0.0"
port = 8787
shared_token = "<paste the generated token>"
poll_interval = 15

A token you choose must be at least 16 characters long, must not be a placeholder from this documentation, and must not be one repeated character or two. The daemon refuses to start with a weaker one and says which setting to fix. The same rule applies to admin.token. Anyone on your network can reach the status port, so a guessable token is the only thing between them and your usage data.

dash.toml holds tokens, so keep it out of version control. The repository already ignores it.

Run it¶

presto-ai-dash --config dash.toml

Add --admin to enable the local configuration page:

presto-ai-dash --config dash.toml --admin

The daemon then listens on two ports:

Port	Default	Who uses it
Status	8787	The Presto, and anything else that wants the payload
Admin	8788	Your browser, on `127.0.0.1` only

Check that it works¶

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer your-token-here" \
     http://127.0.0.1:8787/api/v1/status

You should get JSON. Without the token, or with the wrong one, the endpoint returns 401.

Validate the configuration without starting the daemon:

presto-ai-dash --check --config dash.toml

Stop the daemon with Ctrl+C.

VS Code¶

The repository ships a launch profile that starts the daemon with the admin page. Open the repository root in VS Code, pick Daemon + admin page in Run and Debug, and press F5 to debug or Ctrl+F5 to run. The profile uses a virtual environment at the repository root and a private dash.toml there.

Run one daemon at a time. The status listener and the admin listener belong to the same process, and the listeners bind exclusively, so a second start fails instead of two daemons answering on the same ports.

What the daemon keeps on disk¶

File	What it is
`dash.toml`	Bootstrap configuration. Keep it private.
`dash.db`	SQLite: accounts, encrypted keys, readings, history.
`dash.db.key`	The encryption master key, outside the database.

The daemon creates dash.db and dash.db.key so that only your account (and on Windows the system and the administrators) can read or change them, and it tightens an existing database the same way when it starts. That protects the files, not the folder: anyone who can write to the folder can delete the database and put their own there, and a database they control decides which address your saved keys are sent to. So the daemon warns, in its log and in the admin page's Problems list, when the folder is writable by Everyone, Authenticated Users or Users (Windows) or by group or other users (Linux and macOS). The fix is to keep the database somewhere only you can write, for example %LOCALAPPDATA%\presto-ai-dash\dash.db, set with daemon.database.

On Windows the key file is protected with DPAPI for your Windows account. On Linux and macOS it is an owner-only file. If you need to move the install to another machine, generate an external key instead:

python -m presto_ai_dash.app --generate-key

Store the result as DASH_ENCRYPTION_KEY. Keep the same key across restarts and back the database and the key up separately.

Environment variables¶

Anything in the configuration file can be set in the environment instead, which is the better place for secrets.

Variable	Overrides
`DASH_SHARED_TOKEN`	`daemon.shared_token`
`DASH_HOST`	`daemon.host`
`DASH_PORT`	`daemon.port`
`DASH_DATABASE`	`daemon.database`
`DASH_LOG_LEVEL`	`logging.level`
`DASH_ADMIN_TOKEN`	`admin.token`
`DASH_KEY_FILE`	`admin.key_file`
`DASH_ENCRYPTION_KEY`	The encryption master key
`DASH_INGEST_ENABLED`	`daemon.ingest_enabled`, the remote reports switch
`DASH_DEMO`	`demo.enabled`, the demo-mode switch
`DASH_OVERFLOW_ROWS`	`display.overflow_rows`

The full list, with every key and its default, is in Configuration keys and environment variables.