Installation

The whole path, once: install Cipher, create an environment, register a server, install the Engine on it, import a project, push. Fifteen minutes if the server is already up.

1 · Install LockFlare Cipher

Download the desktop app for macOS or Windows and open it. Create an account, or sign in if you have one. Every account starts free and stays free — one server, eight cores, no expiry.

2 · Create an environment

An environment is a deployment target — Development, Staging, Live, or whatever your process calls them. Open Environments and add one. It is just a name and a colour at this point; the servers come next.

3 · Register a server

Add a server to that environment: give it a label, its public IP address, and the number of cores to allocate. LockFlare issues a licence key bound to that IP.

Copy the key — you need it in the next step, and it is the only thing that ties the Engine on that machine to your account.

4 · Install the Engine

Download the interpreter for your runtime from the Downloads screen in Cipher, copy it to the server, and follow the guide for that runtime. The two differ in more than the binary name — Node runs behind a web server on port 3000, .NET binds port 80 directly — so use the right one.

Both end the same way: you run the engine once by hand, it prompts for the licence key you copied in step 3, validates it and writes it to .env. After that you put it under a service manager so it survives a reboot.

Within a few seconds the server should appear as online in Monitoring. If it does not, the cause is almost always port 80 — see Server requirements.

5 · Import a project

Back in Cipher, open Projects and add one. Point it at the folder on your disk, name it, choose the runtime, and set the starting file — the file the interpreter loads and runs, typically server.js for Node.

Attach the environment you created in step 2, and add the domain the project should answer on.

6 · Push

Open the project and press Push. Cipher packs the folder in memory, encrypts it, uploads the ciphertext, and signals the Engine to load it. The chain on screen shows each stage as it completes.

Point your DNS at the server and the project is live. Subsequent deploys are the same single action.

What to do next

• Add more servers to the same environment for redundancy — a push fans out to all of them.
• Create a second environment and promote builds into it rather than rebuilding.
• Invite your team and set per-member permissions.
• Once a server is settled, consider sealing it — it disables every login on the machine, which is the strongest position available.

Server requirements Migrating an existing app