Your first hour

After you install, the dashboard shows a Get set up card to admins. Each step turns to Done on its own when Gardience sees it done, and the card goes away when all six are. Hide this removes it for everyone.

1. Install#

The quickest way is the one command on your trial or order page:

curl -fsSL https://gardience.com/i/YOUR-CODE | sudo bash

It installs Docker if it is missing, adds your license and prints the console address and the admin password. See Install on one server for the options and for servers without internet access.

2. Add your license#

If you installed with the one command, this is already done. Otherwise open Settings > License and upload gardience-license.json. Without a license the console is read-only.

3. Add your first machines#

Open Machines > Add machines. Coming from Ansible? Paste your inventory and the SSH key you already use under Add machines over SSH, and every host gets the agent with its groups. Otherwise, Linux machines join with a one-line installer and Windows machines with a PowerShell installer, or many at once with the Ansible playbook. With an enrollment token they join without a manual key approval. Start with two or three test machines.

4. Add a teammate who can approve changes#

A change needs someone other than the person who asked for it to approve it, so a one-person console cannot run approved changes. On the server:

sudo /opt/gardience/gardience user add sam approver

Or connect your directory or single sign-on under Settings and map a group to the approver role. See Users and roles.

5. Send alerts where your team looks#

Under Settings, add a Slack or Teams webhook, or an email server and addresses. Failed runs, approvals that are waiting and new vulnerabilities then reach you without opening the console.

6. See your vulnerabilities#

Open Security > Vulnerabilities. Gardience checks every machine against Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat and Microsoft security data and lists which machines are exposed and which have a fix waiting. See Vulnerabilities.

7. Run your first patch#

On Patch & compliance, Install updates on one test machine's row, or start the patch runbook for a group under Automation > Runbooks. Before patching, Gardience checks each machine is ready (disk space, package manager health, a pending restart on Windows) and skips the ones that are not, with the reason. When the run finishes, Patch success, last 30 days on the dashboard starts counting.