Getting Started

Step 1: Create a Dashboard account

Go to app.glassmkr.com and sign up with email, Google, or GitHub. Free accounts can monitor up to 3 servers with 7-day retention.

Step 2: Register a server

After logging in, click "+ Add Server" on the dashboard. Enter a name for your server (e.g., web-01 or db-prod).

Dashboard generates a collector key that starts with gmk_cru_live_. This key is shown once. Copy it. (Servers created before Crucible 0.9.0 may have a legacy col_xxx key; both formats work.)

Step 3: Install Crucible

SSH into your server and run the install command. The dashboard shows the exact command with your server name and collector key pre-filled:

curl -sf https://glassmkr.com/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- --api-key gmk_cru_live_your_key_here

The bootstrap installer (Crucible 0.9.1+) installs the agent via npm, then runs the glassmkr-crucible init wizard. init validates your collector key against Dashboard, writes /etc/glassmkr/collector.yaml (mode 0600), writes the systemd unit with the auto-detected binary path, and enables the glassmkr-crucible service.

The installer:

• Installs Node.js 22 if not present
• Installs smartmontools (for SMART disk monitoring)
• Installs ipmitool (for IPMI hardware monitoring, if available)
• Runs glassmkr-crucible init to write the config and systemd unit
• Starts the glassmkr-crucible service

Reading the key from a password manager? Pipe it through stdin:

op read "op://Private/Dashboard/key" | sudo glassmkr-crucible init --api-key -

The --dashboard-key flag is preserved as a backwards-compatible alias for --api-key, so existing Ansible / Terraform automation keeps working without changes.

Prefer not to pipe to bash? Install the npm package and run init directly:

# Install Crucible via npm
sudo npm install -g @glassmkr/crucible

# Run the first-run setup wizard
sudo glassmkr-crucible init --api-key gmk_cru_live_your_key_here

Run glassmkr-crucible init --help to see the full flag list (custom server name, alternate Dashboard URL, etc.).

Step 4: Verify

Check that Crucible is running:

sudo systemctl status glassmkr-crucible

You should see active (running). Check the logs for the first collection:

sudo journalctl -u glassmkr-crucible --since "5 min ago" --no-pager

Expected output (the first collection may take a few seconds longer than subsequent ones):

[collector] Starting. Server: web-01. Interval: 300s
[collector] IPMI: enabled, SMART: enabled
[collector] Dashboard: https://app.glassmkr.com
[collector] Collecting...
[collector] Collected in 1013ms. Alerts: 0 active, 0 new, 0 resolved

=== First collection complete ===
Server: web-01 (Ubuntu 24.04 LTS)
CPU:    5.3% (load: 0.14)
RAM:    12.1% (1940 / 16036 MB)
Disk:   23% (/)
SMART:  2 drive(s) checked
Network: eth0, eth1
IPMI:   available
Active alerts: 0
Dashboard: enabled

[dashboard] Push successful. Active alerts: 0

Within 5 minutes (one collection interval), the server will appear on your Dashboard dashboard with live data. Dashboard evaluates all 38 alert rules on each push.