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Pallax Agent

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Pallax Agent

The Pallax Agent is a small program you install on a Linux-based gateway. It connects the gateway to the platform automatically and securely, and gives you extra capabilities a gateway without the agent doesn't have.

What the agent handles for you

  • Connection and certificates, automatically. During pairing, the agent receives its certificate directly from the platform and installs it itself. You don't download anything for this and don't copy any files by hand — that's what fundamentally distinguishes the agent path from a manual connection (see Connecting a gateway without the agent).
  • Live status data. The gateway's CPU, memory, disk, and uptime appear on the Monitoring tab of the gateway detail page.
  • Remote access, when you need it. With the agent, the gateway detail page gives you a tab for remote commands and a live console. Without the agent, both are hidden.
  • Certificate renewal without any effort on your part. When a certificate expires, the platform issues a new one and the agent picks it up on its own — you don't need to download or install anything again.

Installation and pairing

Pairing begins in the wizard when you provision a new gateway in your workspace and reach the Agent Connection step. There the platform shows you a time-limited pairing code along with the matching install commands for your system.

Debian / Ubuntu:

curl -fsSL https://packages.pxdc.io/gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/pallax.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/pallax.gpg] https://packages.pxdc.io/apt stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pallax.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y pallax-agent

OpenWrt:

wget -O /tmp/install.sh https://packages.pxdc.io/install.sh && sh /tmp/install.sh

Then you pair the gateway with the code shown in the wizard:

pallax-agent --pair <CODE> --type <lorawan|mioty> --endpoint https://agent.pxdc.io

The wizard shows you the pairing command with the endpoint matching your environment directly — if it differs, always use the command shown there instead of the example above.

This one command requests the certificate, receives it, and stores it locally — the agent then starts automatically and connects. The wizard detects the successful pairing on its own and shows "Gateway connected!"; a manual certificate download is neither necessary nor provided for anywhere in this flow.

Checking whether the agent is running

  • In the wizard: As long as the platform is still waiting for pairing, the screen shows "Waiting for agent to connect…". After successful pairing the display switches to "Gateway connected!".
  • On the gateway detail page, Monitoring tab: The CPU, memory, disk, and uptime tiles fill with real values once the agent has sent its first telemetry. Until then, it shows "awaiting agent telemetry" — that's not an error message, but the normal state shortly after pairing.
  • Remote command and live console tabs: Both are only usable once an agent is connected. If the connection is missing, the interface explicitly points out that the Pallax Agent is required for this.
  • On the gateway itself (systemd systems): systemctl status pallax-agent and journalctl -u pallax-agent -f. On OpenWrt: /etc/init.d/pallax-agent status and logread -e pallax-agent -f.
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