---
title: Operator machine
date: 2025-08-03
series:
  - Wild Cloud Setup
series_order: 4
---

(This page assumes you already have your hardware ready to set up. If you don't, read [Setting Up Your Hardware](../hardware/)).

## Your operator machine

Your operator machine is the computer you manage your wild cloud with. Below, we will install the Wild Cloud software on your operator machine.

Your operator machine should be a [Linux](/learning/linux/) machine on your LAN. It's helpful if it has a nice big hard drive you can use for backing up your wild cloud data.

## Install the Wild Cloud software

{{< go-deeper >}}
We recognize that this part of the guide requires more knowledge of `git` and `bash`. We plan to create a `wild` CLI and perhaps even a GUI setup before wider release. For now, we are prototyping our (fully functional) POC by using scripts from this Wild Cloud repo.
{{< /go-deeper >}}

Download the Wild Cloud software using git:

```bash
git clone https://git.civilsociety.dev/CSTF/wild-cloud.git
```

Add the `bin` directory to your path.
```bash
export PATH=$PATH:~/wild-cloud/bin
```

Install dependencies:

```bash
scripts/install-wild-cloud-dependencies.sh
```

## Create your Wild Cloud Home

Now that you have the Wild Cloud software installed, we are going to create a directory that will hold everything about your personal wild cloud. We call this your "Wild Cloud Home".

{{< definition >}}
Your **Wild Cloud Home** is the directory where all of your wild cloud data will be stored. This includes your configuration files, data files, and any other files related to your wild cloud.
{{< /definition >}}

You can put it in any directory. Here we show an example if you want to make a directory named `my-wild-cloud` in your home directory.

```bash
mkdir -p ~/my-wild-cloud
cd ~/my-wild-cloud
wild-init
```

That's it! Your wild cloud operator machine is ready to go! Most of the rest of the instructions in this guide will assume you are working within this directory.
