Install using a virtual environment¶

Tower requires Python 3.10. Choose one of the following installation methods.

Using the installation script¶

The installation script creates a virtual environment and installs Tower into it. Python 3.10 must be installed and available on the host:

curl https://sh.gufolabs.com/tower | sh -s -- venv

Using pip¶

The host must have Python 3.10 installed. Create the virtual environment with that interpreter, then install Tower:

python3.10 -m venv tower
cd tower
. bin/activate
pip install gufo-tower

Using uv¶

Ask uv to create the environment with Python 3.10:

uv venv --python 3.10 tower
cd tower
. bin/activate
uv pip install gufo-tower

Start Tower¶

From the parent directory of the tower environment, activate it and start the web server:

. tower/bin/activate
gufo-tower web

The server listens on port 8888 by default. Press Ctrl+C to stop it.

Run Tower with systemd on Linux¶

For a system-wide service, create a dedicated service account, a virtual environment at /opt/tower, and a persistent home directory:

sudo useradd --system --home-dir /var/lib/tower --create-home \
  --shell /usr/sbin/nologin tower
sudo python3.10 -m venv /opt/tower
sudo /opt/tower/bin/pip install gufo-tower
sudo chown -R tower:tower /var/lib/tower

Save the following unit as /etc/systemd/system/gufo-tower.service:

The unit binds Tower to 127.0.0.1:8888, which is appropriate when Nginx on the same host forwards HTTPS traffic to Tower. See Configure a Reverse Proxy. If Tower will handle incoming traffic directly, remove --listen=127.0.0.1:8888 from ExecStart; Tower then uses its default listen address, 0.0.0.0:8888. Direct access is unencrypted HTTP, so use it only on a trusted network.

Load the unit and enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now gufo-tower.service

Check its status with sudo systemctl status gufo-tower.service. The unit listens on 127.0.0.1:8888, so access Tower through a reverse proxy on the host.