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PocketSharePocketShare Hosts

Run your hub

Check that it’s working

Section titled “Check that it’s working”

Your dashboard shows each hub as Online while it reports in; it does so every 30 seconds. On the hub itself:

Terminal window
pocketshare-hub status                 # which account and hub this computer is enrolled as
pocketshare-hub devices                # what the hub sees on USB, without sending anything
systemctl status pocketshare-hub       # Linux and Raspberry Pi: is the service running
journalctl -u pocketshare-hub -f       # its log, one line per event

pocketshare-hub devices shows each phone’s model, Android version, the hub’s checks and its battery and storage. Serial numbers are shown only as a scrambled code, the same one PocketShare sees.

A phone doesn’t appear

Section titled “A phone doesn’t appear”
  • “Allow USB debugging” on your hub: a phone is plugged in and waiting for you to unlock it and tap Allow on Allow USB debugging? Unplug and replug it if the prompt went away.
  • Nothing at all: try another cable (many are charge-only) or USB port, and check that USB debugging is still on.
  • Checks failed: the dashboard says which. Remove any accounts from the phone (Settings › Passwords & accounts) or free some storage; the hub checks again within a minute.

Other phones on the same computer

Section titled “Other phones on the same computer”

The hub uses every phone plugged into the computer’s USB ports, and never emulators or phones connected over Wi-Fi. If the computer has phones that aren’t for rent, list the ones that are in the hub’s settings file, /etc/pocketshare-hub/config.json on Linux and the Raspberry Pi (C:\ProgramData\PocketShare\Hub\config.json on Windows), then restart the hub:

{ "devices": ["R58M123ABCD"] }

The hub then ignores every other phone completely: it doesn’t read anything from them and doesn’t tell PocketShare they exist.

Updates

Section titled “Updates”

The hub installs signed updates by itself, only while none of your phones is rented or being cleaned, and goes back to the previous version if an update doesn’t work. To turn this off, put "selfUpdate": false in the settings file. On Linux and the Raspberry Pi, running the install command again also updates the hub to the newest release.

Hot phones

Section titled “Hot phones”

If a phone’s battery gets too hot, or reports a battery fault, the hub pauses it and your dashboard shows why. It resumes by itself once the battery has cooled down. Move phones somewhere cooler, out of direct sun and off soft surfaces, if this happens often.

Moving or replacing the hub

Section titled “Moving or replacing the hub”

To move the hub to another computer, enroll the new one with a new code and remove the old hub in your dashboard. The hub’s identity is a key stored only on that computer (/var/lib/pocketshare-hub on Linux); removing the hub with curl -fsSL https://getpocketshare.com/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall --purge (or sudo apt purge pocketshare-hub) deletes it.