Installing the panel

The panel is the central half of a GameDash installation: the database, the web interface and the REST API that nodes report to. It is deployed with Docker.

Panel images and the Compose file are distributed with your licence rather than published openly. If you hold a licence and do not have them, the licensing portal is where to look.

Before you start

A Linux host with Docker and Docker Compose. Docker on Windows carries enough overhead that we recommend against it for the panel.
DNS records pointing at that host — see below.
Your licence credentials.

Read Requirements first if you have not.

Installing Docker

Follow Docker's own instructions for your distribution — they change often enough that repeating them here would only go stale:

Docker Engine: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/
Docker Compose: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

DNS

GameDash is split into separate services so they can be scaled independently, and each is normally served on its own name. Create a record for each before bringing the stack up:

Service	Example
Web interface	`gamedash.example.com`
API	`api.gamedash.example.com`
Relay	`relay.gamedash.example.com`

The names are yours to choose; what matters is that all three resolve to the panel host and that the values you use here match the ones you put in the configuration.

Bringing it up

With the Compose file and configuration in place:

docker compose up -d

Because everything ships as pre-built images, there are no dependencies to install and no web server to configure by hand.

Once the stack is up, work through Panel configuration, then Add your first node.

Putting it behind a proxy

Running the panel behind Cloudflare is fully supported and is the usual way to keep the host's real address off the public internet. See Cloudflare & proxying.