Manual install - Debian (no support)

This document provides the necessary steps for installation of TeslaMate on a vanilla Debian or Ubuntu system. The recommended and most straightforward installation approach is through the use of Docker, however this walkthrough provides the necessary steps for manual installation in an aptitude (Debian/Ubuntu) environment.

Requirements

Click on the following items to view detailed installation steps.

Note that in very recent distributions, you might have the required versions already packaged. However, the contents or naming of the Debian/Ubuntu packages might slightly differ than the ones from upstream, so you might need to install extra packages or do other tweaks.

Postgres (v17.3+)

Either upstream:

wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ `lsb_release -cs`-pgdg main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y postgresql-17 postgresql-client-17

Source: postgresql.org/download

Or if you run a recent enough distribution (e.g. Debian Trixie:):

sudo apt install postgresql-17 postgresql-client-17

Elixir (v1.16+)

Either from upstream:

wget https://packages.erlang-solutions.com/erlang-solutions_2.0_all.deb && sudo dpkg -i erlang-solutions_2.0_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y elixir esl-erlang

Source: erlang.org/downloads

Or if you run a recent enough distribution (e.g. Debian Trixie:):

sudo apt install erlang erlang-dev erlang-syntax-tools elixir

Grafana (v12.0.1+)

sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://packages.grafana.com/oss/deb stable main"
wget -q -O - https://packages.grafana.com/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y grafana
sudo systemctl start grafana-server
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server.service # to start Grafana at boot time

Source: grafana.com/docs/installation

Import the Grafana dashboards after cloning the TeslaMate git repository.

An MQTT Broker (e.g. Mosquitto)

sudo apt-get install -y mosquitto

Source: mosquitto.org/download

Node.js (v20+)

Either from upstream:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Source: nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager

Or if you run a recent enough distribution (e.g. Debian Trixie:):

sudo apt install nodejs npm

Clone TeslaMate git repository

The following command will clone the source files for the TeslaMate project. This should be run in an appropriate directory within which you would like to install TeslaMate. You should also record this path and provide them to the startup scripts proposed at the end of this guide.

cd /usr/src

git clone https://github.com/teslamate-org/teslamate.git
cd teslamate

git checkout $(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`) # Checkout the latest stable version

Create PostgreSQL database

The following commands will create a database called teslamate on the PostgreSQL database server, and a user called teslamate. When creating the teslamate user, you will be prompted to enter a password for the user interactively. This password should be recorded and provided as an environment variable in the startup script at the end of this guide.

sudo -u postgres psql
postgres=# create database teslamate;
postgres=# create user teslamate with encrypted password 'your_secure_password_here';
postgres=# grant all privileges on database teslamate to teslamate;
postgres=# ALTER USER teslamate WITH SUPERUSER;
postgres=# \q

Note: The superuser privileges can be revoked after running the initial database migrations.

Compile Elixir Project

mix local.hex --force; mix local.rebar --force

mix deps.get --only prod
npm install --prefix ./assets && npm run deploy --prefix ./assets

MIX_ENV=prod mix do phx.digest, release --overwrite

Set your system locale

You may need to set your system locale. If you get an error when running the TeslaMate service which indicates that you don't have a UTF-8 capable system locale set, run the following commands to set the locale on your system:

sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
sudo localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Starting TeslaMate at boot time

systemd

Create a systemd service at /etc/systemd/system/teslamate.service:

[Unit]
Description=TeslaMate
After=network.target
After=postgresql.service

[Service]
Type=simple
# User=username
# Group=groupname

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

Environment="HOME=/usr/src/teslamate"
Environment="LANG=en_US.UTF-8"
Environment="LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8"
Environment="TZ=Europe/Berlin"
Environment="PORT=4000"
Environment="ENCRYPTION_KEY=your_secure_encryption_key_here"
Environment="DATABASE_USER=teslamate"
Environment="DATABASE_PASS=#your secure password!
Environment="DATABASE_NAME=teslamate"
Environment="DATABASE_HOST=127.0.0.1"
Environment="MQTT_HOST=127.0.0.1"

WorkingDirectory=/usr/src/teslamate

ExecStartPre=/usr/src/teslamate/_build/prod/rel/teslamate/bin/teslamate eval "TeslaMate.Release.migrate"
ExecStart=/usr/src/teslamate/_build/prod/rel/teslamate/bin/teslamate start
ExecStop=/usr/src/teslamate/_build/prod/rel/teslamate/bin/teslamate stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• MQTT_HOST should be the IP address of your MQTT broker. If you do not have one installed, the MQTT functionality can be disabled with DISABLE_MQTT=true.
• TZ should be your local timezone. Work out your timezone name using the TZ database name in the linked Wikipedia page.

Start the service:

sudo systemctl start teslamate

And automatically get it to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable teslamate

screen

Create the following file: /usr/local/bin/teslamate-start.sh

You should at least substitute the following details:

• MQTT_HOST should be the IP address of your MQTT broker. If you do not have one installed, the MQTT functionality can be disabled with 'DISABLE_MQTT=true'.
• TZ should be your local timezone. Work out your timezone name using the TZ database name in the linked Wikipedia page.
• TESLAMATEPATH should be the path that you ran the git clone within.

export ENCRYPTION_KEY="your_secure_encryption_key_here"
export DATABASE_USER="teslamate"
export DATABASE_PASS="your_secure_password_here"
export DATABASE_HOST="127.0.0.1"
export DATABASE_NAME="teslamate"
export MQTT_HOST="127.0.0.1"
export MQTT_USERNAME="teslamate"
export MQTT_PASSWORD="teslamate"
export MQTT_TLS="false"
export TZ="Europe/Berlin"
export TESLAMATEPATH=/usr/src/teslamate

$TESLAMATEPATH/_build/prod/rel/teslamate/bin/teslamate start

The following command needs to be run once during the installation process in order to create the database schema for the TeslaMate installation:

export ENCRYPTION_KEY="your_secure_encryption_key_here"
export DATABASE_USER="teslamate"
export DATABASE_PASS="your_secure_password_here"
export DATABASE_HOST="127.0.0.1"
export DATABASE_NAME="teslamate"
_build/prod/rel/teslamate/bin/teslamate eval "TeslaMate.Release.migrate"

Add the following to /etc/rc.local, to start a screen session at boot time and run the TeslaMate server within a screen session. This lets you interactively connect to the session if needed.

# Start TeslaMate
cd /usr/src/teslamate
screen -S teslamate -L -dm bash -c "cd /usr/src/teslamate; ./start.sh; exec sh"

Import Grafana Dashboards

1. Visit localhost:3000 and log in. The default credentials are: admin:admin.

2. Create a data source with the name "TeslaMate":

   Type: PostgreSQL
   Default: YES
   Name: TeslaMate
   Host: localhost
   Database: teslamate
   User: teslamate  Password: your_secure_password_here
   SSL-Mode: disable
   Version: 10

3. Install jq:

   sudo apt install jq

4. Manually import the dashboard files or use the dashboards.sh script. First create a "Service Account" called TeslaMate under Grafana's Administration > User and access menu. Then create an API token for this service account (in place of <mytoken> below) and run the script:

   $ env GRAFANA_API_TOKEN=<mytoken> ./grafana/dashboards.sh restore
   
   URL:                    http://localhost:3000
   GRAFANA_API_TOKEN:      mytoken
   DASHBOARDS_DIRECTORY:   ./grafana/dashboards
   GRAFANA_ORG_NAMESPACE:  default
   
   RESTORED locations.json into Grafana folder 'TeslaMate' ...
   RESTORED drive-stats.json into Grafana folder 'TeslaMate' ...
   ...
   tip

   To point to a different Grafana instance use the URL variable:

   env URL=https://mygrafana.example.net GRAFANA_API_TOKEN=<mytoken> ./grafana/dashboards.sh restore
   tip

   In case you use a Grafana installation that runs on a separate server (for example, an already existing Grafana install), set the URL variable to point to it (the default points to http://localhost:3000, use a full URL, including protocol, host and port):

   URL=<your-grafana-instance-url> ./grafana/dashboards.sh restore