Getting started

The setup wizard and first sign-in

Everything the installer could not decide on its own is asked here, once. Six steps, three of them optional. You stay signed in at the end - there is no second sign-in, and no "complete your profile" screen waiting behind it.

1. Owner account

The account you will sign in with. It owns the installation and can create everyone else.

Email address - used as your user name. Nothing is sent to it during setup.
Password - at least 8 characters. Write it down: there is no email recovery until a mail server exists.

2. Domain

One domain you own, and the two names under it that this installation answers to. The defaults are app for the panel and mail for the mail server; both are editable, and they have to differ. Give the apex itself, not a subdomain.

The wizard then shows the two A records to create, each with the address to point at and a sentence saying what breaks without it. It checks them every few seconds and marks each one as resolving or not. You do not have to wait: continue, and the last step lists whatever is still missing.

3. DNS provider (optional)

Give an API token for whoever hosts your DNS and Portiger creates those records for you - and, later, the mail records and the wildcard certificate challenge. Skip it and you create records by hand; nothing else changes.

Before anything is written the wizard shows the plan: every record it would create or replace, with the value that is there now. You publish it, or go back. Providers offered here are Cloudflare, DigitalOcean and Hetzner DNS.

4. Certificate

A real certificate for the panel's own name. How it is proved is not a choice: with a DNS provider stored, a record your provider writes; without one, a challenge on this server itself.

If it fails there is a way out. The step says so plainly - usually DNS that has not propagated yet, or port 80 not reaching this host - and offers Retry and Continue with the self-signed certificate. Carrying on is safe: the certificate can be requested again later from Settings.

5. Mail server (optional)

A switch, off by default. Turned on, it installs and configures the mail server for the mail name you chose, in six visible stages: host check, install packages, configure, obtain certificate, acceptance test, go live. Nothing is opened to the internet until the acceptance test passes.

It needs outbound port 25 and takes several minutes. If a stage fails, the step offers Retry and Continue without mail for now; mail can be turned on later from its own page. See Mail.

On a plan that does not include mail the step says so and moves on.

6. Finish

A summary of what this installation now is: the panel address, whether the mail server is running, and whether both DNS records resolve. Anything still missing is listed with the consequence of leaving it that way. Then you go to the dashboard, already signed in.

Signing in afterwards

The sign-in page takes the owner's email and password. If SSO is configured it also offers Sign in with SSO; see Users, roles and SSO. The forgot-password flow sends a six-digit code to a registered address, which needs a working mail path - so on a fresh installation with no mail, a forgotten owner password is reset from the command line instead. See Command line.

A user created by the owner gets a temporary password shown once. They set a permanent one at their first sign-in.

Next: add a node, or go straight to Stacks.