ASUS 19000AI Frigate setup on AI board (initial password)

[jlobue10]

I'm sharing the workaround that I figured out and had to use in order to get the initial Frigate password for login. The official ASUS instructions to just remove the container and rebuild/ reinstall it never worked for me in several attempts to give me the initial password, so I was never able to login to the Frigate GUI. I found a fix that worked for me, so I'm sharing it here in case other people have the same issue/ problem. Maybe it was an issue with my setup or an issue with the Frigate image for the AI board. Either way, I found a workaround that worked, so here it is.

Install Frigate NVR from the AI board GUI and then open portainer. Go to the Containers tab for your Docker and open the terminal for formal-frigate-asus. Launch into the terminal with default settings (click Connect button). We need to add some lines to the config.yaml file. These were the terminal commands that I used to accomplish this.

cd /config

cat <<'EOF' >> config.yaml

auth:
  enabled: true
  reset_admin_password: true

EOF

This command is adding these lines to the end of the config.yaml file.

auth:
  enabled: true
  reset_admin_password: true

 After this is done, you can verify the change with this command.

cat config.yaml

You should see the lines added to the end of the config.yaml file. End the terminal session by either typing exit followed by enter in the terminal or by clicking the GUI Disconnect button. Restart the frigate container and then go to logs. You should now see the initial admin user password properly. Use this to login to the Frigate GUI and update the password for whatever you want (ASUS guides go over this step in case you can't find where to go). Now from the Frigate GUI you can go to Settings->Configuration Editor (you may need to refresh the page to see the config file) and remove the "reset_admin_password: true" line. All should be good now to continue using Frigate with your updated password. Hopefully this saves some others the headaches that I was having with this step not working how the guides implied it would. Happy New Year. 🙂

[Saltgrass]

I don't have the router, yet, but are you saying the initial instructions below do not work?  Thanks for the info.

3. Find the Initial Random Password

The first time you log in to Frigate, you’ll be asked for a password. The default password is randomly generated and must be retrieved from the Frigate container log.

Open Portainer.

Find the Frigate container and click Logs to view the log page.

The string after User and Password is your initial account and password. It’s recommended to turn off Auto-refresh log to avoid constant screen refresh. You can also search for Password in the search bar to find it quickly.

[jlobue10]

Yes, I'm saying that when you look in the logs after initial setup, the initial admin password may not actually be there. I spent more time on this yesterday than I care to admit, and I was considering abandoning using Frigate NVR on this router (which would have been a shame as this is one of the big appeals of this NPU and router combo). I was able to get it working with my workaround though, to force the initial password to be generated and to be shown in the log file. Also, this should be the preferable method for password reset rather than blowing away the whole container anyways. This was somewhat annoying to figure out as there is no typical text editor to use in the container command line, hence my utilization of 'cat'. I'm just hoping to help others with this post as I almost gave up trying to use Frigate on this router, and resorting to running Frigate on a different server.

[jzchen]

That's crazy.  I've been trying to update Portainer (for hours on end)...  Were you able to do that?

@Saltgrass Thanks I did catch that.  But it doesn't work.  Good riddance.  Sigh...

[jlobue10]

I ended up buying the home and student license to upgrade the Portainer version. Since I'm just using this at home and not for a business, I figured that's okay. I don't think you can update the Portainer version without the business license (or home and student license). At the least, you're at the mercy of ASUS update cadence for Portainer, if you don't want to purchase a license. I think most people probably don't need to purchase a license, to be honest.I was able to update the Portainer version after authenticating my home and student Portainer license.

[jzchen]

Thank you.

The first thing I saw was that there's an available update in the lower left and clicked on the link.  Nothing like seeing three CVEs to make you want to quickly try to update....

I agree the Home and Student version of the Business license should apply to me as well.  (Not 100% sure I am keeping it yet, I need to write a good review of it per the the conditions of me receiving it)...

[jzchen]

It was a pain, but there's a way to get the initial password:

1.  You have to Restore the Factory default.

2.  Refresh the page (just in case it loads from cache, as I thought I broke the Restore feature prior.

3.  Install Portainer

3a.  Open portainer to create your account.

4.  Install Frigate (once it shows the Open button)

5.  Quickly Open Portainer

5a .  Open the Log file

5b.  Toggle off Auto Refresh as recommended

IF you are quick enough it shows if you scroll up, just as the onboarding instructions note.

[jlobue10]

Yeah that seems way too fragile and flimsy, and for those people who've already set up ad blocker on the AI board, restoring factory default does not seem like a great thing to need to do. Anyways, my post was more informative than anything else, and I think editing the config in case of forgotten password would be preferable to reinstalling the Frigate container (especially after it's all configured and set up). Thanks for sharing.