gridvane
Gridvane documentation

Quickstart

Set up Gridvane, enroll your first host, and start reading live infrastructure signals without exposing internal server details.

Typical setupUnder 5 minutes

Account, agent token, one command, live dashboard.

Setup

DashboardLinuxWindowsProduction
1

Create your workspace

Sign up, create an organization, and open the dashboard. Gridvane keeps organizations separated so each team only sees its own agents, alerts, and metrics.

Create account
2

Generate a one-time agent token

Go to Agents, choose Add agent, and generate a fresh token for the host you want to monitor. Tokens are single-use by design.

3

Run the install command on the host

Copy the command shown in the dashboard and run it on the machine you want to monitor. The command automatically downloads the right agent for the operating system.

Copy the one-time install command from Dashboard > Agents > Add agent
4

Confirm the agent is online

After enrollment, the host should appear in the Agents view with live CPU, memory, disk, uptime, services, and connection state.

Open Dashboard > Agents and wait for the host status to change to Online

Supported Systems

Linux servers

Use the dashboard-generated shell command for Ubuntu, Debian, and other common Linux servers, or use the GPG-signed APT/YUM repositories described below for fleets.

Windows hosts

Use the PowerShell command from the dashboard. It supports user-mode installs and elevated service installs.

macOS hosts

The shell installer creates a hidden _gridvane system user and a launchd LaunchDaemon (com.gridvane.agent) with KeepAlive so the agent restarts automatically if a user mistakenly stops it.

APT and YUM repositories (signed)

For fleet deployments, prefer the official package repositories over the one-line install. Packages are GPG-signed, ship a hardened systemd unit, and integrate with standard configuration management (Ansible, Salt, Puppet, cloud-init).

Debian / Ubuntu

curl -fsSL https://gridvane.dev/keys/gridvane-archive-keyring.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/gridvane.gpg echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/gridvane.gpg] https://gridvane.dev/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gridvane.list sudo apt update && sudo apt install gridvane-agent sudo -u gridvane gridvane-agent enroll --server https://gridvane.dev --token <TOKEN> --config /etc/gridvane/agent.json sudo systemctl start gridvane-agent

RHEL / Rocky / Fedora

sudo rpm --import https://gridvane.dev/keys/gridvane-archive-keyring.asc sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/gridvane.repo <<EOF [gridvane] name=Gridvane baseurl=https://gridvane.dev/yum enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 repo_gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=https://gridvane.dev/keys/gridvane-archive-keyring.asc EOF sudo dnf install gridvane-agent sudo -u gridvane gridvane-agent enroll --server https://gridvane.dev --token <TOKEN> --config /etc/gridvane/agent.json sudo systemctl start gridvane-agent

The signing key fingerprint is D6B9 B6AC 7E20 1965 81D2 30C6 D280 D5D6 F063 9C6B. Verify it after import with gpg --fingerprint [email protected].

Agents

The Gridvane agent is lightweight, cross-platform, and designed to reconnect safely across deploys, restarts, and infrastructure migrations.

  • One-time tokens prevent accidental reuse.
  • mTLS certificates identify each agent.
  • Self-updates are disabled by default and require explicit operator opt-in.
  • Installers verify SHA-256 checksums before replacing binaries.
  • Existing host identity is preserved when a machine reenrolls cleanly.

Metrics

Live status

See online, offline, degraded, and healthy states at a glance.

Historical charts

Inspect CPU, memory, disk, network, uptime, services, and GPU signals over time.

Dashboard-first workflow

The public docs explain the workflow; detailed API surfaces stay private in production.

Alerts

Alert rules help you turn raw telemetry into action. Start simple, then add channels when the signal is reliable.

cpu_usage > 90 AND mem_usage > 80Example rule expression

Topology

Use topology to understand relationships between hosts, services, and network activity. It is built for operational context, not decorative diagrams.

Security Model

No public API map

OpenAPI and Redoc are hidden in production to reduce endpoint enumeration.

Outbound-only agent

Agents connect out to Gridvane. They do not expose an inbound management port on customer servers.

No remote shell

The agent reports telemetry and health signals. It does not accept shell commands or arbitrary scripts from the dashboard.

Agent mTLS

Each agent gets its own certificate and private key during enrollment. Revoked identities cannot reconnect.

Least-privilege service

Linux installs use a dedicated system user with a sandboxed systemd unit. Windows service installs use LocalService instead of LocalSystem.

Controlled updates

Self-updates are disabled by default. Operators can opt in after reviewing their change-management policy.

Scoped sessions

Dashboard sessions use short-lived access tokens and refresh-cookie recovery.

Password recovery

Reset links are emailed in production and are never returned in public JSON responses.

Installer Trust

Gridvane installers are designed for production operations: they fail closed when checksums cannot be verified, write installation logs, support diagnostics, and can be removed without deleting agent identity unless the operator explicitly purges it.

Diagnostics

Run the installer in doctor mode to check OS support, network reachability, binary download, checksum availability, and local service state.

Conservative uninstall

Uninstall removes the service and binary while preserving configuration by default, so a host can be restored without losing identity.

Native release path

Release scripts support package artifacts and Windows signing hooks so regulated environments can move from one-line install to signed packages.

Migrations

Gridvane is designed so customer agents point at public product hostnames, not private server addresses. Moving the app to a new server should be a DNS and data-restore task, not an agent reinstall campaign.

Troubleshooting

The agent does not appear online

Generate a fresh one-time token, rerun the dashboard command, and confirm the host can reach the public Gridvane domains.

The token says it was already used

Tokens are intentionally single-use. Create a new token from the Agents page.

A host was reinstalled or renamed

Reenroll the host from the dashboard. Gridvane will preserve identity when it can match the machine safely.