Fenrus

Fenrus is a lightweight, self‑hosted personal dashboard built on ASP.NET Core 7. Its core mission is to replace the default browser home page with a customizable, data‑driven interface that exposes quick links, widgets, and user‑specific settings. The application persists all configuration in a single encrypted LiteDB file (Fenrus.db), making it trivial to backup, migrate, or share across machines without compromising credentials.

Key Features

• Configurable Widgets – Users can drop, reorder, and resize components such as bookmarks, RSS feeds, or custom HTML snippets.
• OAuth Integration – Supports external identity providers (Google, Azure AD, etc.) with reverse‑proxy awareness.
• Plugin‑Friendly – Exposes a REST API and webhooks for third‑party extensions, enabling developers to add new widgets or automate dashboard updates.
• Data Encryption – Sensitive data (e.g., OAuth tokens) is encrypted with a key stored alongside the database, ensuring secure off‑site backups.

Technical Stack

The application is intentionally minimalistic: no external services are required, and all assets (JS/CSS) are bundled within the Docker image. This design reduces attack surface and simplifies compliance for security‑conscious environments.

Core Capabilities

• RESTful API – CRUD operations for widgets, user profiles, and authentication tokens. The API follows conventional ASP.NET routing patterns (/api/widgets, /api/users).
• Webhooks – POST endpoints that external services can call to trigger UI refreshes or data syncs.
• Plugin Hooks – Custom middleware can inject additional routes or modify the Razor view pipeline, allowing developers to extend functionality without touching core code.
• Template System – Razor partials are exposed for developers to create new widget types or override existing layouts.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Fenrus is designed for single‑instance deployments, but its stateless API layer and embedded database make it suitable for horizontal scaling with a shared volume (e.g., NFS, SMB). Typical deployment scenarios include:

• Docker Compose – Example compose file shows volume mapping for /app/data and environment variables for time zone, port, and reverse‑proxy settings.
• Kubernetes – The container image can be run in a StatefulSet with a PersistentVolumeClaim for /app/data.
• Bare Metal – Directly run dotnet Fenrus.dll on any machine with .NET 7 installed; the only requirement is file system access to the database folder.

Resource consumption is modest: a single container consumes < 200 MB of RAM under normal load, making it ideal for home labs or edge devices.

Integration & Extensibility

Fenrus’ plugin architecture is deliberately open. Developers can:

• Add New Widgets – Publish a NuGet package that registers Razor components and routes.
• Consume External APIs – Use the built‑in HTTP client factory to fetch data and push it into widgets.
• Expose Data – The API returns JSON, so any front‑end framework (React, Vue) can consume it for custom dashboards.
• Automate via Webhooks – Set up CI/CD pipelines to push configuration changes or refresh tokens automatically.

The reverse‑proxy section of the README details how to forward X-Forwarded-* headers, ensuring OAuth flows work correctly behind corporate proxies or cloud load balancers.

Developer Experience

• Configuration – Environment variables provide a clean, declarative way to tweak runtime behavior (port, TZ, reverse‑proxy flags).
• Documentation – The README covers installation, Docker usage, and reverse‑proxy configuration in a concise manner. API endpoints are documented via Swagger (auto‑generated from controller attributes).
• Community & Support – The project is open source on GitHub with an active issue tracker. Contributions are welcomed, and the author encourages pull requests for new widgets or integrations.
• Licensing – The MIT license allows unrestricted use, modification, and redistribution, making it attractive for internal tooling.

Use Cases

Advantages

• Zero‑Configuration Persistence – One encrypted file holds all state; no external database or schema migrations.
• Performance – ASP.NET Core’s Kestrel server delivers sub‑millisecond responses; LiteDB offers fast read/write for small datasets.
• Flexibility –