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On-site provisioning

Audience: the installer standing in the equipment room. Time: ~20 minutes. You need: the node, two network connections, and the site code.

1. Cable it

  • Uplink port → the site's internet-capable network (any network that can reach the internet outbound; no inbound rules needed).
  • Camera/device port → the surveillance LAN (the network the cameras, switches, and radios live on).

Which port is which?

The node's local UI shows both interfaces live under Connectivity with a green dot when a link is up — if in doubt, plug in and look.

2. Run the wizard

From a laptop on the same network, open http://<node-ip>:5000. The first-boot wizard asks for exactly one thing you must know: the site code that shipped with the paperwork. Server coordinates come pre-filled from factory provisioning.

Submit, and the node registers itself: it joins the encrypted overlay, announces to the monitoring plane, and starts its first LAN discovery.

3. Verify — the green-dot walk

Open the node UI's Node info tab and check, top to bottom:

Node UI

  1. Heartbeat badge fresh (seconds, not minutes)
  2. Connectivity: uplink green, camera NIC green, scan subnets listed
  3. Services: every unit active
  4. Reddwatch Server and Control plane both reachable

Then confirm in the portal (or have the ops desk confirm) that the site's devices are appearing:

Devices Discovered site devices with type, location, and live status.

4. Hand off

  • Note where the node is racked and which drops feed it (future you will ask).
  • The ops desk takes it from here: device classification, topology mapping, alert routing, and camera reference frames are portal-side work.

If something's red

Symptom Check
Wizard can't reach server Uplink port on the wrong network; captive portal; site blocks outbound 443
Heartbeat stale Give it two minutes after the wizard; then power-cycle once
Camera NIC "no IP" Wrong port on the surveillance LAN, or the LAN needs the node's static IP reserved
A service not active Download bundle on the diagnostics tab and send it with the ticket

The node needs nothing else from the site: no VPN, no port forwarding, no firewall changes. Everything it does is outbound.