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FloteraFlotera

Quickstart

This walkthrough gets one machine into your fleet and visible on a marketplace. Budget about 15 minutes, most of it waiting for the installer.

You need SSH access to the machine, an account on Vast.ai or Clore.ai, and a working NVIDIA driver. The installer does not install the driver — see what your machine needs if you are not sure.

  1. Create your account

    Section titled “Create your account”

    Sign up at panel.flotera.com. You get a code by email, enter it, then set a password.

    The Free plan manages 1 machine and costs nothing. You do not need to add money to try it, and there is no card on file.

  2. Get the install command

    Section titled “Get the install command”

    In the panel, open Servers and choose Add server. You get a command with a one-time token in it:

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

    The token identifies which account the machine joins. It is single-use, so copy the command fresh for every machine.

  3. Run it on the machine

    Section titled “Run it on the machine”

    Paste the command into an SSH session on the machine itself. It runs 6 steps and says what each one did.

    The first question decides what the agent is allowed to do:

    The agent reports GPUs, temperatures, power draw, disks and network. It runs as an unprivileged user and cannot change anything on your GPUs. Choose this if you only want visibility.

    After you answer, the script asks for your sudo password once and installs the service. You can change your mind later by re-running the installer with --privilege full or --privilege readonly.

  4. Check that the machine reported in

    Section titled “Check that the machine reported in”

    Go back to Servers. The machine appears within about a minute, with its GPUs, temperatures and power draw filled in.

    If it does not, see machine offline before reinstalling — reinstalling rarely fixes it, and the usual cause is a blocked outbound connection.

  5. Connect a marketplace

    Section titled “Connect a marketplace”

    Open Marketplaces and add your Vast.ai or Clore.ai account with an API key from that marketplace. Flotera then sees the listings and rentals that already exist on it.

    One machine is rented out by one marketplace at a time. If a machine is already listed on both, Flotera warns you rather than silently picking one.

  6. Run the readiness check

    Section titled “Run the readiness check”

    On the machine’s card, open Platforms and run the check. It answers whether this machine will pass the marketplace’s requirements, and names what to fix when it will not — a kernel setting, a closed port, a network speed below the threshold.

    Fix what it lists, re-run it, then set your price and go live.

What got installed

Section titled “What got installed”

The installer places everything under names you can find later:

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
flotera-agent.service the systemd unit that runs the agent
flotera-agent-cli the command you run by hand for diagnostics

The service runs as the user flotera-agent, not as root.

Common questions

Section titled “Common questions”

Does the agent need root?

Section titled “Does the agent need root?”

The daemon does not run as root. Installing the service does, which is why the script asks for sudo once, after the privilege question.

Can I install it on a rented instance?

Section titled “Can I install it on a rented instance?”

You can install it read-only with --target container. Full privilege is refused there on purpose: a rented instance has no rights over the GPU it borrows, and offering control it cannot deliver would be a lie.

How do I remove it?

Section titled “How do I remove it?”
Terminal window
sudo /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://get.flotera.com/uninstall.sh)"

This removes the service, the binaries and the local state.

Connect Vast.ai or Clore.aiAPI keys, listings, and what the readiness check means.
Plans and pricingWhat $0, $2, $5 and $15 per machine include.