New application but no app yet - Orb

Apps and Virtualization
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From the makers of Ookla’s speedtest and like one other thing, comes a nice little tool called Orb. Not gonna sell it very hard, but it’s slick, with an Orb app and Orb sensors. They support a whole bunch of architectures for the sensors already. Between the app and the sensor, you get a nice look into your internet quality (speed, reliability, latency) with your own sensor data, as you deploy sensors on your network to just about anything.

Since they offer a docker container, and Scale Apps are pretty much that, anyone wanna take a swing at baking Orb into an App? It just launched today so their devs are happy to help out.

https://orb.net/ if you are curious or want to cook with it.

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Short update. They supply a yaml file that includes watchtower to keep the docker orb sensor instance up to date. Within TrueNas apps, you can get to the fully custom app screen that allows you to paste a yaml file.

All you need to do to deploy the sensor is just paste their yaml in and save. It’ll do the rest, and runs nicely with all the defaults. It’s slow to start and make sure you already have the full blown frontend on your phone or whatever so you can add the sensor to your account when you’re done.

TLDR don’t really need a dedicated app after all.

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I like it and am using it on a few clients, but cannot get it to work in dockge in TrueNAS scale, error:

orb-sensor  | time=2025-05-02T10:09:59.759Z level=INFO msg="zeroconf started" publish=true browse=false err="listen udp4 224.0.0.251:5353: bind: address already in use"
orb-sensor  | time=2025-05-02T10:09:59.759Z level=ERROR msg="Error starting orb" error="listen udp4 224.0.0.251:5353: bind: address already in use"
orb-sensor exited with code 1

It’s got something to do with network, the documentation is adamant that it wants HOST mode which gives this error, have tried BRIDGE and specifying the IP and port (it needs UDP 5353) to no avail. If anyone else has this issue (and a solution) chime in please, it’s a good app!

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I’m not sure if it will help here, but I’ve gotten around the need for HOST mode by using a macvlan network that I created in my compose file.

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Hey! Thanks for the information, I am suprised at how long it took me to find what you meant by installing a custom app via the yaml so I have included screenshots for any future viewers to follow to make it easier.

THIS IS TO INSTALL A HEADLESS ORB SENSOR ON TRUENAS SCALE

As always before we start, update & backup your system if you care about whats on it.

  • First, click on Apps>Discover Apps>THREE VERT DOTS>Install via YAML

  • Then name the container orb, then paste the exact Docker YAML as described in the Orb docs

  • Then hit save and watch it take its sweet time to come online

Remember to add the orb sensor via the interface on the Orb app

Thanks again to OP for the starter info!

*Stupid trueass doesn’t let you add pictures or links to posts so sorry no images peeps

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I made a HexOS forum post that has images in it too. Remove the (@@) from the link.

hub.@@hexos.@@com/topic/3173-orb-by-ookla-install-headless-sensor/

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TLDR don’t really need a dedicated app after all.

This is true for ALL apps. You don’t need TrueNAS’s “community apps” at all. The best way to manage these is to install Dockge or Portainer (in the community apps), and then inside those you can install and manage all your other apps by just editing docker-compose yaml files.

Yeah, it’d be nicer to manage everything within TN’s GUI, but this method frees you from being dependent on the community apps and their maintainers, and lets you go directly to the source and use any app that can be installed with docker-compose.