Linux Gateways
Last modified on March 24, 2023
- Navigate to the StrongDM Admin UI. Select the Gateways tab and click add gateway.

Define the advertised host for the server (e.g.
sdm-gw0.yourcompany.com
, or111.222.333.444
). It must be an IP or hostname accessible to your StrongDM clients. Enter the port that you left open for the gateway to interact with StrongDM clients (by default,5000
).If you change the advertised port, verify whether or not you also need to change the bind port. The bind port is set from the Advanced option upon gateway creation.Click create. This generates a token which is only shown to you one time that you’ll need to use later in the installation process. Carefully copy the token and save it somewhere for later use.
Log in to the server you created to host your gateway.
Download the StrongDM binary:
curl -J -O -L https://app.strongdm.com/releases/cli/linux
Unzip it (if this is a new server, you may need to install a package to unzip archives, such as with
sudo apt-get install unzip
on Ubuntu distributions):unzip sdmcli_VERSION_NUMBER_linux_amd64.zip
Install the gateway:
sudo ./sdm install --relay
You will be prompted for the token you created above; paste it in and hit enter. Note that the token won’t show in the terminal for security purposes, similar to the masking of a password.
The installer must be run by a user that exists in the/etc/passwd
file. Any users remotely authenticated, such as with LDAP or an SSO service, may fail to complete the installation.Log in to the StrongDM Admin UI. In the Gateways tab, the gateway you created should appear to be online, and have a heartbeat. If it doesn’t appear online, perform a hard refresh of your browser. Within a couple of minutes, if it is still not online, verify that the StrongDM daemon is running by running
ps aux|grep sdm
on the server and looking for a line that sayssdm relay
. If you have problems, contact StrongDM support.