STING Installation Domain Guide

Overview

When you install STING, it automatically generates a unique local domain for your installation. This domain:

  • Enables WebAuthn passkeys to work across all devices on your network
  • Provides consistent URLs for all services
  • Prevents conflicts when running multiple STING instances
  • Works automatically with mDNS/Bonjour on macOS

Fresh Installation

./install_sting.sh install

After installation completes, you’ll see:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STING Installation Complete!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Your STING Domain: mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive

Access STING at:
  Frontend:    https://mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive:8443
  API:         https://mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive:5050
  Auth:        https://mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive:4433

This domain is accessible from any device on your network

Method 2: Installation with Domain Setup

./install_with_domain.sh install

This explicitly handles domain setup during installation.

Post-Installation

Finding Your Domain

If you missed the installation message:

# Check current domain
cat ~/.sting-ce/.sting_domain

# Or run the status command
./manage_sting.sh status

Quick Reference

After installation, check ~/.sting-ce/QUICK_START.txt or /opt/sting-ce/QUICK_START.txt for your domain and access URLs.

Domain Structure

Your domain follows this pattern:

{machine-id}.sting.hive
     |         |     |
     |         |     └── Custom TLD (avoids .local conflicts)  
     |         └────────── Product namespace
     └──────────────────── Unique 8-character machine identifier

Examples:

  • mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive (macOS)
  • linux-a1b2c3d4.sting.hive (Linux)

Accessing STING

From This Machine

Simply use the domain shown during installation:

https://mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive:8443

From Other Devices on Your Network

macOS with Bonjour (Automatic)

The domain works automatically - just enter the URL in any browser on your network.

Without mDNS (Manual)

Add to the device’s /etc/hosts:

192.168.1.100    mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive

Replace 192.168.1.100 with your STING server’s IP address.

Customizing Your Domain

To change your domain after installation:

./setup_local_domain.sh

Options:

  1. Automatic - Generate new unique domain
  2. Custom - Choose your own (e.g., my-sting.sting.hive)
  3. Simple - Use sting.hive (may conflict)

Integration with Installation Scripts

The domain system integrates with STING’s installation in several ways:

  1. Automatic Generation: Domain is generated from hardware ID during first install
  2. Persistence: Domain is saved in ~/.sting-ce/.sting_domain
  3. Service Configuration: All services are configured with the domain
  4. WebAuthn Setup: RP ID is set to your domain for passkey compatibility

Troubleshooting

Domain Not Working

  1. Check domain file exists:

    ls -la ~/.sting-ce/.sting_domain

  2. Verify mDNS service (macOS):

    dns-sd -B _https._tcp

  3. Test domain resolution:

    ping mac-c8ba5237.sting.hive

Certificate Warnings

You’ll see certificate warnings because STING uses self-signed certificates. This is normal - accept the certificate to proceed.

Can’t Access from Other Devices

  1. Ensure devices are on the same network
  2. Check firewall isn’t blocking ports 8443, 5050, etc.
  3. If mDNS isn’t available, manually add to /etc/hosts

Benefits

Using a custom domain provides:

  • WebAuthn Compatibility: Passkeys work across all your devices
  • Consistent URLs: Same address from any device
  • No Conflicts: Multiple STING instances can coexist
  • Professional Feel: Better than localhost:8443
  • Zero Configuration: Works out of the box with mDNS

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