Render Farm Update Tracker

A self-hosted web app for monitoring and deploying software updates across a mixed Windows/macOS render farm. Tracks Cinema 4D, Redshift, Red Giant, After Effects, Blender, FFmpeg, NotchLC, NVIDIA Studio drivers and the Creative Cloud / Maxon manager apps — shows each node's installed vs. latest version and rolls out updates with progress, retries, and a failure circuit breaker.

• Zero dependencies — the server is plain Node.js (≥ 22.5, uses the built-in node:sqlite module). No npm install, no build step.
• One agent script — a stdlib-only Python 3 script (agents/render_agent.py) runs on every node, Windows and macOS alike. It self-updates from the server.

┌─────────────┐   check-in (poll)       ┌──────────────────────┐
│ render node │ ──────────────────────▶ │  tracker server      │
│  ("Beacon"  │ ◀── queued jobs ─────── │  node server.js      │
│   agent.py) │ ──── job status ──────▶ │  dashboard :4400     │
│             │ ◀── installer files ─── │  + SQLite tracker.db │
└─────────────┘                         └──────────────────────┘

The UI has six tabs: Dashboard (per-node software versions + actions), Updates (deploy wizard + recent jobs), Fleet (live NOC view: what every machine is doing, agent rollout, GPU/driver/disk health, alerts), Activity (event log), Catalog (product/version config + settings), Help.

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👋 Handing this off / integrating into a bigger app

Start with HANDOFF.md. It is the engineering reference: architecture, component/file map, the SQLite data model, the full HTTP API reference, configuration & hard-coded assumptions, a step-by-step "merging onto a custom domain / mounting under a bigger app" guide (reverse proxy, X-Forwarded-*, the agent re-pointing gotcha, sub-path mounting), the security must-fix list before exposing beyond the LAN, and a final merge checklist.

Integration in one line: everything the UI needs comes from a single polled endpoint, GET /api/state (denormalized JSON snapshot). External consumers should call the API, never read tracker.db directly — many fields (online, dl_pct, job progress) are computed per-request and don't exist as columns.

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After cloning (what's gitignored)

These are intentionally not in the repo (secrets / state / large binaries) — see .gitignore:

Path	What it is	How to recreate
config.json	port + plaintext agent key + Slack webhook	Auto-generated on first node server.js (key printed to console). See config.example.json for the shape.
tracker.db*	SQLite state (nodes, jobs, history)	Created empty on first run.
installers/	staged installer binaries (large / licensed)	Drop files in per deployment.
.claude/	local editor/tooling settings	n/a

Requires Node ≥ 22.5 and Python 3.8+ on the nodes.

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1. Start the server

node server.js

• Dashboard: http://localhost:4400 (LAN: http://<this-machine>:4400).
• First start writes config.json with a generated agent key (printed to the console; also at GET /api/agent-setup).
• State lives in tracker.db. Delete it to start fresh.

Keep it running with a LaunchAgent/systemd unit, or nohup node server.js >> tracker.log 2>&1 &.

2. Enrol the render nodes

The Help tab shows copy-paste one-liners (they fetch a generated installer that embeds the server URL + agent key):

• macOS — curl -fsSL http://TRACKER-HOST:4400/enroll.sh | bash, then once with admin rights: curl -fsSL http://TRACKER-HOST:4400/setup.sh | sudo bash
• Windows (PowerShell) — irm http://TRACKER-HOST:4400/enroll.ps1 | iex, then once elevated: irm http://TRACKER-HOST:4400/elevate.ps1 | iex

The elevation step installs the agent as a SYSTEM scheduled task (Windows) / root LaunchDaemon (macOS) so it can run installers headlessly. Nodes appear on the Dashboard within seconds with detected versions.

⚠️ The enrol/setup scripts embed the agent key in plaintext — serve them only on a trusted LAN, never expose them publicly. (See HANDOFF §8.)

Quick manual test on a node:

python3 render_agent.py --server http://TRACKER-HOST:4400 --key <AGENT_KEY> --once

3. Track latest versions

Most products auto-detect "latest" server-side (Maxon Zendesk feed, NVIDIA's public driver lookup, Adobe RUM for After Effects, gyan.dev/evermeet for FFmpeg). The Catalog tab lets you override versions, set install sources, and toggle per-product auto-deploy (canary-first).

4. Deploy updates

On the Updates tab: pick software → choose machines (outdated only, or pick) → options (platform/source) → Update now. Deploys are a bounded rolling rollout (maxConcurrentInstalls at a time) with a circuit breaker (pauses if 3+ fail with no success). Watch live progress, Stop/Retry per job, in the Recent jobs table and the Fleet tab.

Installer commands use {file} for the downloaded path. Examples and the silent flags per product are in HANDOFF and the in-app Catalog presets.

Notes & limits

• Security: agent endpoints require the agent key; the dashboard/admin API has no login — run it on a trusted LAN or behind a VPN/reverse-proxy auth. Anyone who can reach the dashboard can deploy. (Full list: HANDOFF §8.)
• Adobe After Effects updates via RUM (patch-only within the installed major); the Creative Cloud desktop app self-updates and is not managed here.
• A node shows offline after ~3 missed check-ins (offlineAfterSeconds, default 180 s). Offline machines can be woken via Wake-on-LAN.

File map

server.js                       HTTP server + all API routes (zero-dep Node)
lib/db.js                       SQLite schema + migrations (tracker.db)
lib/extra_versions.js           NVIDIA driver latest-version detection
lib/maxon_versions.js           Maxon release-notes feed parsing
public/                         dashboard UI (vanilla JS — app.js / index.html / style.css)
agents/render_agent.py          cross-platform "Beacon" node agent (self-updating)
agents/com.tracker.agent.plist  macOS LaunchDaemon template
agents/install-windows-task.ps1 Windows scheduled-task installer
deploy/                         fleet enrol/elevate helper scripts
installers/                     drop installer files here (gitignored)
config.json                     port + agent key (created on first run; gitignored)
config.example.json             reference shape for config.json
HANDOFF.md                      ★ engineering + integration reference