The admin panel

Every Frame server has a small web dashboard at https://frame.example.com/admin/ for the person who runs it: invite people, manage accounts, review reports, change a few settings, see how much disk the server uses and download a backup. Admins can do most of the same from Server admin in the Frame apps.

What you can do

The panel works on a phone, follows your system's light or dark setting, and loads nothing from other websites.

Reports

Frame never scans anything automatically. Members can report a moment, a message or a person from the app, which asks you, the server's admin, to look at one thing. Reports go only to your server, never to Crow Tech or anyone else.

• A report holds who reported, whose content it is, the type, a reason (spam, harassment, nudity, violence, self-harm, other), an optional note of up to 500 characters and the date. Only ids are stored, never a copy of the content.
• Opening a report shows exactly the reported item and nothing around it. Opening a reported moment or message is written to the audit log.
• Delete removes the moment or message as if its author had. Suspend signs the author out everywhere and stops them signing in, until you undo it in Users. Dismiss does nothing to anyone. Each action resolves every open report on the same item.
• In the app, reporting a moment also hides it from the reporter's feed, and the reporter can block the author in the same step.

Server admin in the apps

Admins get a Server admin menu in the Frame apps with the overview, users, reports, invites, settings, the audit log and the media cleanup. It goes through the normal app API on the server's main address, so it works wherever the app works, and every check the panel makes applies. FRAME_ADMIN_APP decides whether the server offers it:

The server logs the effective setting when it starts.

• Unlocking the menu asks for your password and, with two-factor authentication on, a code, with the same attempt limits as the panel's sign-in. It is written to the audit log. Accounts that only sign in with Apple or Google set a password first.
• Bound to this app session: the admin session ends when you leave the menu, after 30 minutes idle or 12 hours at most, and when you sign out, the device is revoked, your password changes, or you lose admin rights. It is listed under Security in the panel as "Frame app · device".
• Not in the apps: the panel's own sign-in and setup, Security (password, two-factor authentication, recovery codes) and backups. Those stay in the web panel.

How the panel is protected

• Only admin accounts can sign in. Every request re-checks that the account is still an admin and not suspended.
• Sessions use an HttpOnly, SameSite=Strict cookie stored only as a hash, and end after 30 minutes idle or 12 hours.
• Sign-in is rate limited like the app's. Two-factor codes are limited to 10 attempts per 15 minutes per account.
• Two-factor authentication uses TOTP with eight single-use recovery codes. Lost both? sudo frame-admin user reset-2fa <username>.
• Changes need a same-origin request with a custom header, and a strict Content Security Policy blocks inline scripts, third-party resources and framing.
• Downloading a backup and changing two-factor settings ask for your password again. You can't suspend, demote or delete yourself, and the last admin can't be demoted.

To take the panel off the internet entirely, see Keep the admin panel private. The full design, including the admin API, is in ADMIN.md.

From the command line

With the Linux installer, always use sudo frame-admin …: it runs the command as the service's own user. With Docker, use docker compose exec frame frame-server admin … instead. Commands work directly on the data directory, are safe while the server runs, and are recorded in the audit log as CLI.

sudo frame-admin setup-link                                              # one-time link to create the first adminsudo frame-admin user listsudo frame-admin user create --email [email protected] --name Alice     # prints a one-time passwordsudo frame-admin user create --phone +34600111222 --name Bobsudo frame-admin user create --email [email protected] --name You --admin # an admin for the web panelsudo frame-admin user promote alice                                      # make an existing user an adminsudo frame-admin user demote alice                                       # (never the last admin)sudo frame-admin user reset-2fa alice                                    # admin lost their authenticatorsudo frame-admin user reset-password alice                               # prints a one-time passwordsudo frame-admin user unlink alice apple                                 # remove a linked Apple or Google sign-insudo frame-admin user delete alice                                       # irreversiblesudo frame-admin invite server --uses 1 --days 7 --note "for Mum"        # server invite linksudo frame-admin invite create alice                                     # alice's friend-invite linksudo frame-admin backup /root/frame-backup.dbsudo frame-admin version

Password resets by e-mail only work if you configure FRAME_SMTP_URL (Configuration). Otherwise the app tells people to ask you, and you use Reset password in the panel or reset-password.