Getting started¶

Familiarize yourself with NATS Tower and its features by reading through the concept.

To get started with NATS Tower, you can either run it as a standalone application or deploy it to your container runtime of choice.

Standalone Application¶

Download the latest version of NATS Tower and run the following command to start it:

./your/path/to/nats-tower serve --http 127.0.0.1:8099

Docker¶

docker run -p 8099:8099 ghcr.io/nats-tower/nats-tower:v0.1.0 serve --http 0.0.0.0:8099

Next, open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8099 to access the NATS Tower interface.

The default user has the email address user@test.org and the default password is testtest.
The default admin has the email address admin@test.org and the default password is testtest. Please change each user after first login using the admin-account

You can manage teams and users by using the admin interface at http://localhost:8099/_/.

Bootstrap a NATS installation¶

Prerequisites:
You need to have the NATS server binary installed.
You need to have the NATS cli installed.
You followed the NATS Tower installation instructions and have a running NATS Tower instance.

Steps to add a new NATS installation:

Login as an admin at http://localhost:8099/. (Default admin: admin@test.org, password: testtest)
Create the NATS installation in NATS Tower by clicking on the + Add installation button.
Set the URL to nats://localhost:4222 and give it a description and click on Add installation. (If using docker, please use the IP of your host instead of localhost)
Select the newly created NATS installation and click on the Settings icon next to the URLs.
Click on Copy as NATS Config.
Switch to the console and create a new file called operator.conf and paste the copied content into it.

Create a new file called nats-server.conf in the same folder and paste the following content into it.

port: 4222
http_port: 8222
server_name: n1


include operator.conf


resolver: {
    type: full
    # Directory in which account jwt will be stored
    dir: '/tmp/nats/storage/jwt-n2'
    # In order to support jwt deletion, set to true
    # If the resolver type is full delete will rename the jwt.
    # This is to allow manual restoration in case of inadvertent deletion.
    # To restore a jwt, remove the added suffix .delete and restart or send a reload signal.
    # To free up storage you must manually delete files with the suffix .delete.
    allow_delete: true
    # Interval at which a nats-server with a nats based account resolver will compare
    # it's state with one random nats based account resolver in the cluster and if needed,
    # exchange jwt and converge on the same set of jwt.
    interval: "2m"
    # limit on the number of jwt stored, will reject new jwt once limit is hit.
    limit: 1000
}

jetstream: {
  store_dir: /tmp/nats/storage/n1
}

Start the NATS server with the following command in this directory:
```
nats-server -c nats-server.conf
```
Switch to the web UI and navigate to accounts view using the navigation bar on the left.
Add a new account by clicking on the + Add account button in the top right corner.
Fill in the account name and description, select the default limit and click on Add account.
Click on Manage Users to manage the users for the account.
Add a new NATS user by clicking on the + Add user button in the top right corner.
Fill in the username and description and click on Add user to create the new user.
Click on View credentials for the newly created user to view the credentials.
Copy the Creds section to a file called nats.creds
Open a new terminal in the same directory as your nats.creds file and run the CLI command from the user credentials dialog.
You should see a message like No Streams defined in the terminal.
Congratulations! You have successfully created a new NATS installation, an account and a new user.