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id, title, sidebar_label
id title sidebar_label
servers Servers Servers

The fleet. Every managed machine runs an agent that connects outbound to the control plane. Keys, workflows, monitors and consoles all point at these records.

Enrolling a server

Covered step by step in Add your first server. In short: Servers → Add server issues a single-use, one-hour token and shows a one-liner to run as root on the target machine.

Lifecycle

Status Meaning
pending Enrolment created; the agent has not registered yet
active The agent registered and is syncing
offline Last-seen passed the threshold

The offline sweep runs every two minutes, so a machine that has just gone away takes a little while to be marked as such.

Tags

A tag is a key:value label you put on a server. Tags are how you say what a machine is, such as env:prod, role:web or team:core-infra, so that you can find it later and so a workflow can target it without you naming it by hand.

There is no tag library to set up first. A tag exists as soon as a server carries it, and disappears when the last server carrying it drops it.

The rules

Rule Value
Characters lowercase letters, digits, - and _, on both halves
Key length up to 32 characters
Value length up to 64 characters
Per server up to 20 tags

Neither half may be empty, and keys beginning sys: are reserved for Vantage's own use.

Anything outside those rules is refused, with a message naming the rule. Uppercase is not corrected for you, so Env and env are different tags.

Editing a server's tags

On the server's page, click Edit beside the tags. Saving replaces the whole set, so what you see in the editor is exactly what the server ends up with. If two people edit the same server at once, the last save wins.

Filtering the fleet

The Servers list has a picker per tag key in use. Choosing values from more than one key narrows the list, because a server must match all of them. Untagged servers appear only when no filter is set.

:::tip A filtered fleet view is a link The filter lives in the URL (/servers?tag=env:prod&tag=role:web). Copy the address bar and you have sent someone the same view, not a description of how to reproduce it. :::

The server detail page

Keys

Which SSH keys are assigned to this machine, and their state. See SSH keys.

Inventory

Agents report:

Data Refreshed
CPU, memory, swap, load every 30 seconds
Partitions, kernel, full static snapshot every 15 minutes

The two carry separate timestamps, so a stale static snapshot beside fresh metrics is normal rather than a fault.

OS updates

Agents check for pending package updates hourly and report the count — the machine's own package manager on Linux, the Windows Update COM API on Windows. From the server page you can:

  • Apply updates runs that check's install path and reports back. The agent never reboots the machine; if one is owed, a reboot required badge appears on the next inventory snapshot instead.
  • Update agent upgrades the Vantage agent on that machine. See Agent updates.

:::warning Applying updates is not scheduled or staged It runs immediately, on that machine. If you need ordering, health checks or a test machine first, build it as a workflow instead. :::

Console

Opens a browser SSH, RDP or VNC session. See Browser console.

Windows servers

Windows agents register, heartbeat, run workflow steps, report inventory, check and apply OS updates, report workloads (services and containers), and serve the browser console. They do not manage authorized_keys, and they are not covered by package inventory or CVE scanning — the vulnerability feeds this project uses carry no Windows data.

Removing a server

Deleting the server record removes it from the fleet. It does not uninstall the agent, which will keep trying to sync and failing. Uninstall it on the machine too:

systemctl disable --now vantage-agent
rm -f /usr/local/bin/vantage-agent /etc/systemd/system/vantage-agent.service
rm -rf /etc/vantage
systemctl daemon-reload

Keys previously written to authorized_keys stay on disk, because the agent is no longer running to remove them. Revoke and let the agent apply the change before you delete the server if that matters to you.

Agent tokens

Each server has its own token, which exists in full only in the agent's config file on that machine. Vantage stores a fingerprint of it and cannot show it to you again. If a token is lost, enrol the machine again.