Installation

Spinning up your own factory-local IronFlock instance takes just a few minutes. From a bare Industrial PC to a fully running platform — three steps, one command, no manual configuration.

Requirements

An Industrial PC with Linux OS (or a virtual machine) with internet access during installation.
ARM64 or AMD64 architecture.
Minimum: 2 CPU cores, 2 GB RAM, 24 GB storage. For analytical data histories collected from machines, much larger storage is recommended (e.g. > 500 GB).

Time Synchronization (NTP)

Point the appliance host at a time server it can actually reach before you install. The system clock is not cosmetic: TLS certificate validation, the periodic license re-check, remote access tokens and the timestamp of every data point your machines produce all depend on it. A host that drifts by minutes produces certificate errors, failed logins and history that no longer matches what happened on the shop floor.

In a corporate network the public time servers an operating system ships with are usually unreachable, because outbound NTP on UDP port 123 is blocked at the firewall. Nothing fails loudly — the host simply never synchronizes and drifts away. Ask your IT department for the internal time server and configure it on the host, or have them allow outbound UDP 123.

With systemd-timesyncd (the default on Debian and Ubuntu):


sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.d
sudo tee /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf.d/corporate.conf > /dev/null <<'EOF'
[Time]
NTP=ntp.your-company.com
EOF
sudo systemctl restart systemd-timesyncd
timedatectl status

With chrony:


echo "server ntp.your-company.com iburst" | sudo tee -a /etc/chrony/chrony.conf
sudo systemctl restart chrony
chronyc sources

timedatectl status must report System clock synchronized: yes before you run the installer.

Virtual machines drift faster than physical hardware. If the appliance runs in a VM, enable the hypervisor’s guest time synchronization as well, and still configure NTP inside the guest.

Steps

Create an account on ironflock.com.
Generate an Instance Key — in the IronFlock UI, open your Profile → Instances, pick the plan that fits your use case, and create a new Instance Key. Copy the key.
Run the installer on your appliance host. Open a terminal on your Industrial PC and run the following command. It downloads and configures the IronFlock software and starts the stack — fully unattended:
```
# Behind a corporate proxy? See the note below before running this.
curl -fsSL https://instance-registry.ironflock.com/dl/appliance/install_ironflock.sh \
  | sudo bash -s -- <your-instance-key>
```
Replace <your-instance-key> with the key from step 2.

Behind a corporate proxy? If the appliance only reaches the internet through a corporate HTTP proxy, you must supply it on the install command so the Docker daemon can pull the images — otherwise the install stops at the login step. See Behind a Corporate Proxy.

That’s it. Once the installer finishes, the appliance boots the full IronFlock platform and will restart automatically on reboot.

Choosing a Mode

The installer sets the appliance up in plain HTTP mode, which needs nothing from corporate IT. For trusted https:// addresses — with a CA the appliance issues itself or with your corporate certificate — see HTTPS & Certificates. If the appliance reaches the internet only through an HTTP proxy, see Behind a Corporate Proxy.