Getting Started

Getting Started

Get up and running with EderaON in three steps: create an account, get your license, and install.

Read Before You Install first. Edera modifies your bootloader and should only be installed on disposable infrastructure.

Step 1: Create an account

  1. Go to on.edera.dev
  2. Click Create Account
  3. Fill in your details and accept the Limited Use License Agreement
  4. Verify your email address

Step 2: Get your license

  1. Log in to on.edera.dev
  2. Click Create License
  3. Click Show to reveal your license key and image pull commands

Your dashboard provides:

  • License key — used during installation and for pulling images
  • Docker login command — authenticates you to images.edera.dev
  • Docker pull command — pulls the Edera installer image

You can copy your license key or download it as a text file.

Step 3: Install

On your target machine (see supported platforms), run the following:

These commands assume your user has access to the Docker (or Podman) socket. If not, add your user to the docker group (sudo usermod -aG docker $USER) or run the container commands with sudo.

Run edera-check

Verify your system is ready (edera-check docs):

docker run --pull always --pid host --privileged \
  ghcr.io/edera-dev/edera-check:stable preinstall

Authenticate to the Edera registry

Set your license key as an environment variable, then use it to authenticate:

export EDERA_LICENSE_KEY=<YOUR_LICENSE_KEY>
docker login -u license -p $EDERA_LICENSE_KEY images.edera.dev

Pull the installer image 

docker pull images.edera.dev/installer:on-preview

Run the installer 

docker run --rm --privileged --pid=host --net=host \
  --env 'TARGET_DIR=/host' \
  --env "EDERA_LICENSE_KEY=${EDERA_LICENSE_KEY}" \
  --volume '/:/host' \
  images.edera.dev/installer:on-preview

The installer will pull and extract Edera components, install the Xen hypervisor and Edera kernel, generate an initramfs, configure GRUB, enable services, and reboot the machine.

The EDERA_LICENSE_KEY value you pass to the installer is automatically written to /var/lib/edera/protect/license.key. You must set it in the installer command above — you do not need to write the file yourself afterward.

Verify the installation

After reboot, SSH back in and verify:

# Check you're running the Edera kernel
uname -r
# Expected: 6.x.y-edera

# Check Xen is running
ls /proc/xen
# Expected: directory listing

# Check the daemon is running
sudo systemctl is-active protect-daemon
# Expected: active
activating is not the same as active. If the daemon is stuck in activating, it failed to start — a missing or invalid license key is a common cause. Check logs with sudo journalctl -u protect-daemon -n 50.

Launch a zone 

sudo protect zone launch -n test-zone --wait
sudo protect zone list

Troubleshooting

If the daemon is not running after reboot:

  • Check logs: sudo journalctl -u protect-daemon -n 50
  • Verify Xen booted: ls /proc/xen (if missing, the machine booted into the stock kernel instead of Xen)
  • Verify UEFI boot: [ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo UEFI || echo BIOS

Missing license key

If the daemon fails with a missing license error, the license key was not written during installation. This can happen if the EDERA_LICENSE_KEY environment variable was not set in the installer command.

To inject the license key manually:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/edera/protect
echo $EDERA_LICENSE_KEY | sudo tee /var/lib/edera/protect/license.key
sudo systemctl restart protect-daemon

For additional help, file an issue on GitHub.

Next steps

Last updated on
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