IronFlock Appliance

The IronFlock Appliance is a pre-configured, self-contained box that ships with the complete IronFlock system ready to use. It is placed on-site next to the machines it manages — no DMZ, no VPC, no Kubernetes cluster required.

Think of it as IronFlock in a box.

Who It’s For

The Appliance fits two main audiences:

Machine manufacturers and OEMs who want to deliver digital services together with their machines. Instead of asking the end customer to open their DMZ or provision cloud infrastructure, the manufacturer ships the IronFlock Appliance including their digital service as part of the machine delivery. The customer plugs it into the local network, and it works.
Small factories with a lean IT team who want a local, turnkey IoT platform without running a full Kubernetes stack. The Appliance arrives pre-configured, installs in minutes, and keeps all data on-site — giving small operations the same dashboards, app management, and device control as a full cloud deployment, with none of the infrastructure overhead.

How It Differs from a Private Cloud Deployment

Both the Appliance and the Private Cloud deployment run IronFlock locally. The key difference is scope and complexity:

Private Cloud is a full IT installation — it runs in the customer’s DMZ or VPC, managed by the customer’s IT team, and can serve many accounts and projects across the organization.
Appliance is a compact, turnkey box — it arrives pre-configured, sits on the local network next to the machines, and requires no IT involvement from the customer. It is designed for a limited number of machines.

Getting Started

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).

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.

Access Your Instance from ironflock.com

Even though the appliance is a fully local platform, you don’t have to be on the factory network to use it. As long as the appliance has an internet connection and your appliance account is connected to your ironflock.com account (see Linking Accounts), you can switch into your instance directly from the IronFlock cloud UI — no VPN, no port forwarding, no extra tooling.

This means:

One unified UI — manage your cloud projects and your appliance instances side by side from a single browser tab.
Work from anywhere — operators, developers, and support staff can reach the appliance over the internet, while all production data and workloads stay local on the appliance.
Easy multi-site oversight — if you operate several appliances across different factories, each one shows up in your ironflock.com account and is one click away.

When the appliance loses internet access, it keeps running locally and remains reachable from inside the factory network at http://<appliance-host> — only the remote access path is paused until connectivity is back.

Firewall Configuration

If the appliance runs in a restricted local network, allow outbound access to the following IronFlock endpoints so it can reach the cloud. All connections are initiated by the appliance — no inbound ports need to be opened on your firewall.


instance-registry.ironflock.com:443   # installing and updating the IronFlock software and agents
cbw.ironflock.com:443                 # managing the appliance remotely from the cloud
web.ironflock.com:443                 # activating the license and enabling AI features
registry.ironflock.com:443            # pulling app images when syncing from the public IronFlock Store
regauth.ironflock.com:443             # authenticating those public Store image pulls
smtp-proxy.ironflock.com:2525         # sending account and notification emails (optional)

The registry.ironflock.com and regauth.ironflock.com entries are needed to sync apps from the public IronFlock Store into the local App Store. registry.ironflock.com serves the app images and regauth.ironflock.com issues the token that authorizes each pull — both must be reachable, or the sync (and remote app browsing/installation) fails. If your appliance only ever serves apps you build locally, you can leave them out.

The smtp-proxy.ironflock.com entry is only needed if you use the built-in IronFlock email relay. If you configure your own SMTP server, you can leave it out.

If your network only reaches the internet through a corporate HTTP proxy, see Behind a Corporate Proxy — the installer can point the Docker daemon at your proxy automatically.

License Lifecycle

Your license is tied to one physical Appliance. The same license cannot run a second IronFlock instance on different hardware at the same time. For everyday operation the Appliance runs offline — production data, dashboards, app management, and edge device control all stay local on the box.

When the Appliance Needs Internet

An internet connection is only required at these moments:

Initial install and Appliance updates — needed anyway to pull software from the IronFlock distribution servers; the license is activated as part of the same step.
Periodic license re-check — depends on your plan:
- Monthly license: once every 30 days.
- Yearly license: once every 365 days.
- Perpetual license: no periodic re-check — internet is only needed on install and on update.
License handover to new hardware (see below).
AI Multi Agent service — only while it is actively in use.

Grace Period and Lock

If a periodic re-check cannot reach the cloud (network outage, transient cloud error), the Appliance enters a 7-day grace period. During the grace, the Appliance keeps running normally and retries automatically.

If seven full days pass without a successful re-check, the Appliance locks itself: most operations are refused and the UI shows the license as invalid. To recover, restore the Appliance’s internet connection and click Revalidate Now in the license panel of your profile on the Appliance UI (the local http://<appliance-host> view, or your instance accessed via ironflock.com).

Moving Your License to New Hardware (Handover)

A license is bound to one machine’s hardware fingerprint. To move it to a different machine, you initiate a handover from your IronFlock cloud profile:

Open Profile → Instances on ironflock.com.
Click Reset Hardware Fingerprint on the instance you want to move.

The handover requires the currently bound Appliance to be online. The cloud connects back to it, asks it to revoke itself locally, and only then clears the cloud-side fingerprint. This handshake guarantees the old Appliance cannot keep running while a new one binds — preventing accidental dual-use of the same license.

Once the unlock succeeds:

Set up the new hardware following the Getting Started steps, using the same instance key.
The new Appliance validates, binds its fingerprint, and becomes the active device.

When the Old Hardware Is Broken or Inaccessible

If the previously bound Appliance is dead or otherwise unreachable, the handshake will time out and the cloud UI shows appliance_unreachable_contact_support. In that case, contact the IronFlock team — we can clear the binding manually after verifying ownership.

Tip: trigger the handover before retiring the old hardware, while it is still online. The process is much faster — for you and for our support team — when the old Appliance can still be reached.

Local Operation

If you don’t want to keep the appliance online you can always use a browser in the same local network and navigate to the appliance’s IP address or hostname:


http://<appliance-host>

Username: admin
Password: ironflock

Don’t forget to change the admin credentials on first login.

App Web UIs

When an app on a connected device exposes a web interface, the appliance makes it reachable through its built-in tunnel. Out of the box this needs nothing from corporate IT — each app UI is published over plain HTTP on an automatically-assigned port of the appliance’s address (http://<appliance-host>:<port>), and the IronFlock UI shows the link. Access is still behind the appliance login.

For trusted https:// URLs on a shared corporate network — using a wildcard certificate from your CA, or a TLS-terminating reverse proxy — see App UIs & HTTPS.

Linking Accounts

Create local user accounts for your team by inviting them by email in your project settings on the appliance. The invitation email contains everything the invitee needs:

A personal connect link — opening it on ironflock.com connects the invitee’s ironflock.com account to the appliance. If they don’t have an ironflock.com account yet, they create one first using the invited email address (the connection is only granted when the two email addresses match). Once connected, the appliance appears in their ironflock.com project selector and they can work on it remotely right away — no manual keys, no local signup required.
A local signup link — optional: completing the local signup additionally lets them log in directly on the appliance UI (http://<appliance-host>).

A few things to know:

Existing local users don’t need a new invitation from the project owner. On the appliance UI they open their Profile and click Email me the connect link in the Connect to ironflock.com section.
Resending: inviting the same email address again (or clicking the profile button again) issues a fresh connect link. Only the link from the most recent email is valid.
If the appliance cannot send email — for example on a restricted corporate network that blocks the mail relay — the connect link is shown directly in the UI instead: the inviter copies it and hands it over through any channel. The link must be opened in a browser with internet access.
Disconnecting: a user can remove the connection at any time on ironflock.com under Profile → Instances → Connected Instances. Re-opening the latest connect link restores it.

The instance owner — the user who created the Instance Key at ironflock.com — is connected to the instance’s local admin account automatically; no invitation is needed for the owner.

Adding Edge Devices

With additional edge devices (i.e., industrial PCs) you can deploy IronFlock apps to more machines and offload app operations from the appliance. The appliance itself already serves as an edge device, but you can attach more edge devices in the same way as you would deploy edge devices in the IronFlock cloud. Just go to Project Settings -> Devices -> New Device and follow the instructions.

Maintenance

To update the IronFlock system on your appliance, the admin can use the update button in the license section of their profile whenever a new version is available. The appliance needs an internet connection to download the update. IronFlock automatically restarts when the update finishes.

Linux OS updates are your responsibility to maintain.

Custom Email Sender (SMTP)

By default, all platform emails — account verification, password recovery, invitations, and alarm notifications — are relayed through the IronFlock cloud SMTP proxy and appear as no-reply@ironflock.com. To make emails appear as sent from your own company, point the appliance at your own SMTP server.

On the appliance host, edit the installer-generated environment file at /opt/ironflock/.env and set the following variables:


SMTP_CONNECTION_URI=smtps://USERNAME:PASSWORD@smtp.your-company.com:465/
SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS=no-reply@your-company.com
SMTP_FROM_NAME=Your Company

Use smtps:// for implicit TLS (typically port 465), or smtp:// with STARTTLS (port 587).
URL-encode any special characters in the username or password (e.g. @ → %40).
Both SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS and SMTP_FROM_NAME are what recipients see in the From header of every platform email.

Apply the change by restarting the stack:


sudo systemctl restart ironflock.service

After the restart, all authentication emails, platform notifications, and alarm emails are sent through your SMTP server with your company’s From address and display name.

If SMTP_CONNECTION_URI is left unset, the appliance keeps routing emails through the IronFlock cloud SMTP proxy authenticated with your license key — no extra setup needed, but emails will be branded as IronFlock.

What’s in the Box

The Appliance ships with all IronFlock services pre-installed and pre-configured:

IronFlock UI accessible from the local network
Local App Store for offline app distribution
Board Studio, Alarms and Data Store
AI Multi Agent system (works only when connected to the internet)

Edge Device and Server in One

The Appliance does not only run the IronFlock platform — it can simultaneously act as an edge device in the IronFlock context. This means it can run containerized apps just like any other managed device, while also serving as the central management node for other devices on the same network. This makes it a compact, complete solution: platform server and edge compute in a single box.

Because the Appliance runs the same IronFlock device agent as any managed edge device, it also benefits from the agent’s Connectivity & Resilience protections — indefinite automatic network reconnection, the Storage Emergency state that keeps the box reachable and recovers automatically when its disk fills, out-of-memory protection, and a self-restarting agent. This is a key reason the Appliance — and your remote access to it — stays online through local network, disk, and memory problems.

Architecture

Hardware

The Appliance hardware is negotiable and is typically provided by the OEM or machine manufacturer. IronFlock provides the software stack and pre-configures the system on the chosen hardware before shipment. Typically, a medium-sized industrial edge PC (4 cores, 8 GB RAM) is sufficient to run the entire stack along with additional applications. Contact the IronFlock team to discuss hardware requirements for your use case.

Syncing Apps from the Online Store

The Appliance includes a local App Store — a private app catalog and container registry that serves apps to devices on the local network. You can populate this local store by syncing apps from the public online IronFlock Store, provided the Appliance has an internet connection available at sync time. No permanent internet connection is required; a temporary connection is sufficient to pull the apps you need.

Prerequisites

An account on the public ironflock.com platform.
Your appliance account is connected to your ironflock.com account (see Linking Accounts). The instance owner’s admin account is connected automatically.

How App Sync Works


┌────────────────────┐                       ┌────────────────────┐
│  Online IronFlock  │  ◄──── account ─────► │  Appliance         │
│  Store (cloud)     │      connection       │  local Store       │
└────────────────────┘                       └────────────────────┘
         │                                            │
   apps available to                          sync button shown
   the connected account                      instead of install

Open the local App Store — When the Appliance has an active internet connection, the App Store shows all apps that are available to your connected ironflock.com account on the online platform.
Sync the apps you need — Instead of an Install button, each app shows a Sync button. Clicking it downloads the app — including its container images and metadata — from the online store into the local store.
Add devices — Once synced, the app is fully available in your local store and you can add devices to it normally, with no internet connection required.

Update Workflow

When a new version of a synced app is published on the online store, a Sync button will appear again for that app. Connect the Appliance to the internet briefly, sync the updated release, and then roll it out to your devices through the standard app upgrade flow.

This design gives you full control over what enters your network — nothing is downloaded automatically, and the internet connection is needed only during the sync step.

Limitations

Single master account for AppStudio — The Appliance can host an AppStudio environment for one master account only. App development is scoped to a single organization.
Limited scale — The Appliance is sized for a bounded set of machines in one location. Fleets that span multiple sites or tens of thousands of devices are better served by the cloud or a private cloud deployment.
AI services require outbound LLM access — See Private Cloud for options when the Appliance has no internet access at all.

Contact Us

Appliance deployments are configured in partnership with the IronFlock team. Contact us to discuss your hardware, machine count, and branding requirements.