StartEvery page

Getting started

panel turns a small Debian machine into the box that runs your home network, keeps your files, or hosts your apps, and gives you one web page to look after it. A fresh machine does nothing on its own. After your first sign-in you choose what it is for, and you can change that later on the Modules page.

What it can be

  • A router. It hands out addresses, answers names, blocks ads and trackers, shares the internet fairly between devices, and can pause a child's devices at bedtime. It can run its own Wi-Fi and a VPN into your home.
  • A NAS. Disks you plug in become shared folders that your computers open with your panel name and password. Two disks can be a mirror, and every disk is checked once a month.
  • Self-hosted apps. Jellyfin and Plex for films and music, Syncthing to keep folders in step, TREK to plan trips. Each runs in a container of its own and is only reachable from your home network.

Usually each job gets its own box, each running panel: a router, a NAS, a box for your apps. One box can do more than one when that suits you. The menu and the Home page follow what a box is.

Several boxes, managed as one

Panels on one network find each other. Paired, and sharing accounts, they have one list of people and passwords, every box's problems are on each Home, and from any one you manage the others, even a box your browser cannot reach. A release installed on one is offered to the rest. Through a relay, boxes at another address join in. See Panels and The relay.

What it runs on

A router needs two network ports: one for the internet and one for your home. A NAS or an app server needs one.

The first sign-in

  1. Find its address. When it starts, the machine's screen lists each port and its address. On your network it is also https://panel once it is your router.
  2. Open it in a browser. Type https:// and the address. The browser warns about the certificate the first time, because panel made its own. That is expected; see A certificate the browser trusts to get rid of the warning.
  3. Sign in as admin with the password panel. You are asked to choose a new password at once, and can do nothing else until you have.
  4. Choose what the machine is for. panel asks once: Router, or decide later. Choosing Router asks which port your home network is on, and offers the one with a cable and nothing answering on it. A NAS or Self-hosted are switched on from Modules.

Changes that wait to be kept

A change that could cut you off is tried, not kept: the firewall, the names and addresses the router hands out, the network ports, the Wi-Fi and the VPN. A band at the top of every page counts down, with Keep. If you lost the connection and cannot press it, the machine puts things back by itself. The same goes for an update of panel itself. See Changes that wait to be kept.

Next

  • Add an account for each person who looks after the machine, with a second factor. See Accounts.
  • Take a backup. See Maintenance.
  • Give the people at home the household page. See Household.