Installing the agent

The quickstart walks through a first install. This page is the reference: what the installer actually does, what it takes as options, and what to do when you need to change something afterwards.

The command

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://get.flotera.com)" -- --token erm_init_...

The token comes from Servers → Add server in the panel. It is single-use and identifies the account the machine joins, so copy a fresh command for each machine.

Why not curl | bash

Piping the script into bash would put it on standard input, and the installer could then no longer ask you anything — reading input would consume its own remaining text. Passing it as an argument keeps standard input free, which is how the privilege question below can be asked properly.

What it does, in 6 steps

The installer prints each step as it goes, so a failure tells you which of the six went wrong instead of leaving you guessing.

1. Asks about privilege. As you, not as root — the answer decides what the service will be allowed to do.
2. Checks the host. Whether the system, driver and network are usable.
3. Downloads the agent from get.flotera.com.
4. Installs helper packages — smartmontools and nvme-cli, if they are missing.
5. Installs the service. This needs root, so the script re-runs itself under sudo here — one password prompt, at the point where it is actually needed.
6. Starts the agent and waits for it to report in.

The privilege question

read-only (default)

The agent reports GPUs, temperatures, power draw, memory, disks and network. It runs as an unprivileged user and cannot change anything on your GPUs.

Choose this when you want visibility and intend to keep control yourself.

full

Everything above, plus control: power limit, fan policy, thermal policy, host reboot and driver install.

Choose this when you want Flotera to hold GPU temperatures for you and to perform maintenance from the panel.

If nobody is at the terminal — Ansible, cloud-init — the installer does not hang waiting for an answer. It takes the smaller of the two, read-only.

Changing it later

Re-run the installer with the level you want:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://get.flotera.com)" -- --token erm_init_... --privilege full

Options

Option	Default	What it does
--token TOKEN	required	one-time registration token from the panel
--privilege LEVEL	asked, else readonly	full or readonly
--api-url URL	https://agent.flotera.com	control plane address
--dist-url URL	https://get.flotera.com	where binaries are fetched from
--mode MODE	native	native or emulator
--target WHERE	host	host or container
--from DIR	—	install from a local directory, no download

Installing into a rented instance

--target container installs into a GPU instance you rent from someone else (Vast.ai, RunPod). It is supervised by supervisord rather than systemd.

Combining it with --privilege full is refused, loudly rather than quietly downgraded. A rented instance has no rights over the card it borrows, and an installer that silently gave you less than you asked for would misreport what is actually running.

What ends up on the machine

Path	What lives there
/usr/lib/flotera-agent	the daemon and its helpers
/etc/flotera-agent	configuration and credentials
/var/lib/flotera-agent	local state and the command journal
/etc/systemd/system/flotera-agent.service	the unit that runs the agent
flotera-agent-cli	the command you run by hand for diagnostics

The service runs as the user flotera-agent. The daemon is never root.

Alongside the main unit the installer places paths and units for self-update and self-uninstall, so both can be triggered from the panel without opening a shell.

Re-running it

The installer is idempotent. A second run updates the binaries and the configuration and leaves your credentials and the command journal untouched. That makes it the right tool for:

• changing the privilege level,
• repairing a half-finished install,
• moving a machine to a different control-plane address.

It is not the right tool for a routine version bump — the agent updates itself on request from the panel, without SSH.

What it will not do

It does not install the NVIDIA driver. That ends in a reboot, and turning “add monitoring” into “restart the server” is not a decision an installer gets to make. Install the driver yourself, or use the driver update command from the panel when you are ready for the downtime.

The machine is not showing upWhat to check before reinstalling — it is usually the outbound connection.