Hand the technical setup to whoever helps you with IT

Before you start

• You are an administrator in Zonitix. You do not need technical knowledge for this page.
• Someone who can do the technical part: a contractor, an IT support company, or a colleague who looks after your company’s email and cloud accounts.
• We host and monitor your server. Zonitix releases are installed automatically in a weekly maintenance window when that is switched on and email is set up, which is the choice pre-selected in the first-run setup wizard; an administrator can apply them by hand instead. Operating-system security patches follow the same window or are applied by hand. Backups and restores are your administrator’s to set up and run. Arranging the jobs on this page is therefore up to you.

Before you ask

1. 1

   Step 1: Decide how your helper gets in

   The simplest way is to sit together, in person or on a call, with you signed in. Your helper tells you what to type; you confirm with your own password when a window such as “Sudo Mode Required” asks for it (Sudo Mode is the app’s name for asking for your password again before a sensitive change). Do not give anyone your password.

   If your helper will do the work alone, give them their own Zonitix account with the administrator role first. See Add your admins.

2. 2

   Step 2: Send them the three guides

   Each job has a step-by-step guide written for an IT person. Send the links:

   • Set up backups
   • Set up email
   • Apply updates

Backups

1. 3

   Step 3: What to ask for

   Do this job first. A new instance stays locked until a first backup has reached storage your company owns and been verified there: until then only the screens needed to finish open, and a red banner reads “Zonitix is locked until backups are set up: connect storage you own and run a first backup.” An instance that was already in use shows a banner with a date 30 days ahead instead. So the first thing to ask your helper for is the storage.

   Your instance already backs itself up every night, but until this is done the backups stay only on the server. Ask your helper for:

   • A private storage bucket in a cloud account your company owns (Amazon S3 or another S3-compatible provider the guide lists, or Azure Blob Storage).
   • The bucket’s name and region.
   • An access key that can upload, read, list and delete in that bucket only, and nothing else in the account.
   • For Azure Blob Storage the list is different: a private container, the storage account’s name and one of its access keys. The setup window shows what to create once Azure is chosen.
   • Then to connect it in Zonitix under SystemBackups & Recovery, with the “Off-box destination” button, and to run “Test connection” before saving.
   • Then to run one backup and click “Check again” in the checklist at the top of that page, so that Zonitix reads the backup back from the bucket and checks it. That is what unlocks a new instance (steps 8 and 9 of the backups guide).
2. 4

   Step 4: What only you can do

   This part has a deadline: 14 days from the first verified backup. Until it is done an amber banner counts down to the date, and if the date passes Zonitix locks again until it is done. Start choosing the people on the day the first backup is verified.

   The copies in your bucket are encrypted, and the key is split between people you choose. Pick three people you trust who have Zonitix accounts (the trustees), and a second administrator to approve. In total that is at least three people with accounts, two of them administrators: the two administrators may also be trustees, and each of the three trustees must be a different person. Any two trustees together can rebuild the key later. Your helper can run the screens, in steps 10 to 13 of the backups guide, but choosing the people is your decision.

   In order, the hand-offs are:

   1. You pick three people and send each of them one file.
   2. Each of the three opens that file on their own computer, makes a key in it and sends you back one block of text. Their page is Be a trustee for a backup key.
   3. A second administrator approves with one click.
   4. You download three files, called kits, one per person, and give each person their own.
   5. Two of the three rebuild the key once, as a test, and you record the result.

   This is done twice, because two keys are protected this way.

   Each trustee gets their own kit. Never keep two kits in the same place.

3. 5

   Step 5: How you know it is done

   • The banner about backups is gone from the top of the app, and so is the checklist at the top of SystemBackups & Recovery. Both stay until the first backup is verified and both keys are shared out.
   • On SystemBackups & Recovery, the newest backup carries a green badge naming your storage, not “not off-box”.
   • On SystemSystem Health, “Off-box copies” reads “configured ✓”, not “0 — local only”.
   • In the “Key escrow” card on the backups page, both keys read “PROTECTED”.

Email

1. 6

   Step 6: What to ask for

   Until email is connected, Zonitix cannot send anything: you hand new users a one-time link yourself, nobody is emailed about a backup that stops arriving, and no update is installed by itself. The email screen stays open while a new instance is locked, so this does not have to wait for the backups. Ask whoever looks after your company’s email for:

   • The name of your mail provider (for example Google Workspace or Microsoft 365).
   • A sending credential for one mailbox: an app password or an API key. Not anyone’s normal sign-in password.
   • The username that goes with it, usually the full mailbox address.
   • The address emails should come from, such as a no-reply address on your domain, which the provider must allow.

   With those four things you can finish the email guide yourself: it is under Security & ComplianceSecurity Settings, in “Email / SMTP”.

2. 7

   Step 7: How you know it is done

   Click “Save & send test” with your own address. You see a green message beginning “Test email sent to”, an email titled “Your email is working” arrives in your inbox, and a green “CONFIGURED” tag appears next to the “Email (SMTP) Configuration” heading.

Updates

1. 8

   Step 8: What to ask for

   Updates are handled inside Zonitix, under SystemUpdates. On a new instance you chose how on the “Updates” step of the setup wizard. With “Update automatically, once a week”, the choice already selected there, Zonitix installs its own new releases and the server’s security patches in a weekly window, once email is set up. With “I’ll install updates myself”, or on an instance where no schedule was ever saved, nothing is installed until a person applies it. Each update backs up your database first, and installing a release restarts services, so expect a short interruption. Agree with your helper:

   • Who looks at the “Updates” page. Make it one named person: whoever your company puts in charge of its Zonitix server and its backups. With automatic updates on, that person still applies the releases an automatic run leaves for a person, and reads the email sent after each run. With them off, that person applies everything.
   • The weekly time, when nobody is working (the “Maintenance window” in the “Automatic schedule” window), and which switches are on under “What updates automatically”. Nothing runs by itself until email is set up.
   • That the “Release channel” stays on “Stable (recommended)”.

   If the person applying updates is not an administrator, their request waits for an administrator to click “Approve” on the same page.

2. 9

   Step 9: How you know it is done

   • On SystemUpdates, the “Application Updates” card reads “UP TO DATE”.
   • With a schedule saved, the “Automatic updates” card shows “ON” and the “Next automatic run” tile shows a day and time, with what that run installs under it. “PAUSED” means email is not set up yet.
   • Your administrators receive an email one day before, one hour before, at the start and at the end of each scheduled run.

Computers and company sign-in

1. 10

   Step 10: Enroll a computer

   Ask whoever looks after your company’s computers to install the Zonitix Agent on one of them, following Enroll a device. They need administrator rights on that computer, and the right to manage devices in Zonitix. It starts under DevicesSettings.

   You know it is done when the computer is listed under DevicesInventory with “Online” in the “Last seen” column.

2. 11

   Step 11: Connect your directory, if you have one

   Skip this step unless your company already keeps its accounts in Okta, Microsoft Entra or Google Workspace. If it does, the person who administers that service does this job, following Connect Okta, Entra or Google. Decide one thing for them beforehand: whether Zonitix may only read your people and groups, or may also create, disable and regroup accounts during onboarding and offboarding.

   You know it is done when the card on Access GovernanceIdentity Hooks shows “Connected” and your people appear under AdministrationUsers.

3. 12

   Step 12: Set up single sign-on, if you have a directory

   Skip this step too unless your company uses one of those services. The same person does it, following Turn on single sign-on. Keep at least one administrator who signs in with a password or a passkey, as that guide says.

   You know it is done when the Zonitix sign-in page shows a button for your provider and a test user who clicks it lands in Zonitix.

What you should see

If something goes wrong

Your helper cannot see Off-box destination, Updates or Email / SMTP.

They are signed in with an account that is not an administrator. Do the step together with you signed in, or give their account the administrator role; see Add your admins.

You have nobody technical to ask.

You can still get all three jobs done. On a new instance the backups are what unlocks Zonitix, so start that one first; email and updates are on screens that stay open, and can be done while you wait for the storage.

Email you can do yourself: its screen has a “Show me how” button with the steps for your provider.

Updates need no outside account at all. If you kept the wizard’s automatic choice, they install themselves once email is set up; otherwise they are buttons on SystemUpdates. Apply updates covers both.

Backups are the one job that needs something made outside Zonitix: a storage bucket in a cloud account your company owns. If your company has no such account, opening one with a storage provider is the first thing to do; whoever handles your company’s other online accounts can do that. Then open SystemBackups & Recovery, click “Off-box destination” and pick the provider under “Back up to”. The second screen has a panel that starts “Setting up” and ends “what to create & what access”: it lists, for that provider, what to create and the permission the key needs. Follow that list in the provider’s own website, come back, and click “Test connection”, which tells you which of its five checks failed if something is wrong.

If you bring in someone for this one job, they need to be able to create a bucket and a key in your company’s cloud account. Sitting with you as in step 1, they need no Zonitix account of their own. Choosing the three trustees in step 4 stays with you.

Zonitix does not perform restores on your behalf. For a question these guides do not answer, see Contact Zonitix support.

The Updates page says "Updater agent not installed on this box".

Neither you nor your helper can fix this. Contact Zonitix support.

Still stuck? See When something goes wrong, or Contact Zonitix support.

Where next

• Set up backups
• Set up email
• Apply updates
• Restore from a backup
• Check system health