Windows

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Installation

The recommended installation order is to choose which way you prefer to run Mongo, host it locally or remotely. Secondly, we recommend you install Petio as a service so it can start automatically everytime your system boots up. We recommend either NSSM or Shawl.

Mongo

Petio supports two ways of connecting to a Mongo Database instance, locally or remote. We recommend the locally hosted MongoDB option.

MongoDB Locally

• Download MongoDB Community Server here (make sure to choose the latest version of 4.4.x). That version only support Windows 10 and Server 2019. If you are on older OS, you need to download Community Server Edition v4.2.

• Install MongoDB using the default instructions on screen.

• Download the latest version of Petio and decide which installation method you prefer

  • NSSM

  • Shawl

• Once this is complete, you can navigate to http://<hostname>:7777/admin/ to start configuring Petio. When you get to the MongoDB setup, instead of mongo:27017 use localhost:27017.

MongoDB Locally - On A Different Host

• Please review the Linux guides and make changes as necessary for your situation.

MongoDB Remotely

• Register for Atlas here.

• Create a free cluster.

• Change the provider or region if you need to. It may take some time to create the cluster.

• After the cluster is made, click on connect and select MongoDB Compass and follow the instructions on screen.

• Download the latest version of Petio and decide which installation method you prefer

  • NSSM

  • Shawl

Petio as a Service

First of all, download the Petio binaries from the downloads page and extract the zip file to a convenient location. (We recommend at the root of your C: drive, i.e: C:\Petio.) Note that the folders from the zip file (config and views at the time of this writing) need to stay in the same folder as the binary itself.

NSSM

• Download the latest release of NSSM.

• Extract the zip folder anywhere you want on your system. We recommend the root of your C:\ drive on a folder called NSSM.

  • Add the NSSM folder to your Windows Path.

    • Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings

    • Click on Environment Variables at the bottom

    • Under System Variables scroll down until you see Path and double click on it

    • Click New and type C:\NSSM

• To start the installion of Petio as a service type:

nssm install petio

• In the Application tab make sure to specify the path toPetio.exe and then click install service.

• To start the service use:

nssm start petio

• To check if the service is up and running use:

nssm status petio

• If you later wish to remove this service use:

nssm remove petio

• Once this is complete you can navigate to http://<hostname>:7777/admin/ to start configuring Petio.

Shawl

• Grab the latest release of Shawl.

• Shawl is portable, so place it anywhere you want on your system; we recommend the root of your C:\ drive in a folder called Shawl.

• Open up an administrator command prompt and navigate to the directory where you placed Shawl. In our case:

cd C:\Shawl

• Create a service for Petio with Shawl using the command:

shawl.exe add --name Petio -- "C:\path\to\petio.exe"

• Then, start the Petio service like so (if you used PowerShell, replace sc by sc.exe):

sc start Petio

• To stop Petio, use

sc stop Petio

• Once this is complete you can navigate to http://<hostname>:7777/admin/ to start configuring Petio or by viewing the .log file that Shawl created for Petio in the same directory where you placed Shawl.

Reverse Proxy

You have the ability to serve Petio behind a reverse proxy. This is inherently more secure as you are not having to punch holes through your router's firewall or your Windows' firewall for every service you want to access remotely. By serving services behind a reverse proxy you are filtering all the traffic to ports 80/443. We recommend you read over our reverse proxy section. We have some helpful examples and there is even one specific to Windows.

Updating Petio

• Download latest binaries from here.

• Stop Petio or the Petio service.

• Replace the "views" folder and "petio-win" with contents from the zip you downloaded.

• Now you're all done. Just fire up Petio again.