Installation Guide
Zero to Running in 5 Minutes
Index Monitor is designed to run on commodity hardware you already own. Follow this guide to set up your appliance, or jump straight to the generator if you're ready.
Step 1: Choose your hardware
You don't need an expensive cloud server. You can run Index Monitor on any machine that stays powered on:
- An x86-64 old laptop, desktop, or mini-PC running Linux.
- A NAS drive (like Synology or QNAP) that supports containerization.
- A cheap VPS like DigitalOcean or Hetzner.
Step 2: Install Docker
Index Monitor runs inside lightweight, isolated containers using Docker. If you don't already have it, install Docker Desktop (for Windows/Mac) or Docker Engine (for Linux).
Step 3: Generate your configuration
Enter your details below. We'll generate a secure configuration to set up your database, pull the latest Index Monitor images, and boot your appliance. Choose whether you want a raw docker-compose.yml file or a copy-pasteable CLI script.
SC_EMAIL_TRANSPORT=log, so alerts will not reach your inbox until you configure a delivery provider in the first-boot wizard. Read the email delivery setup steps.
Secure database passwords are automatically generated locally in your browser. No data leaves this page.