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ipmideck ships a single console command, ipmideck, that starts the server, resets the admin password, or generates a self-signed certificate.
The CLI only applies when you run ipmideck directly (pip install or a source checkout). The Docker image launches uvicorn backend.main:app directly and never invokes the CLI, so none of these flags, the bind precedence, or the single-instance guard apply to the container. The container’s bind is set by its own startup command. See Installation.

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Starting the server

start is the primary serve command. A bare invocation with no subcommand serves identically, so these are equivalent:
With no flags, ipmideck binds 0.0.0.0:3000 by default, reachable on every interface, on port 3000. Open http://<your-ip>:3000 once it is up. Override the bind with --host and --port:

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Subcommands

serve is a deprecated alias of start, prefer start (or a bare ipmideck) in new scripts.

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Flags

These top-level flags apply to the serve path. --demo and --config are read before any subcommand branch, so they also affect reset-password and --gen-cert.

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Bind precedence

The host and port ipmideck actually binds are resolved in this order, highest priority first:
  1. An explicit --host / --port flag on the command line.
  2. Configuration, which itself resolves env var (IPMIDECK_SERVER_HOST / IPMIDECK_SERVER_PORT) over config.yaml over the built-in default.
  3. The hardcoded fallback 0.0.0.0:3000, used if the early config load fails.
In other words: a value you persist to config.yaml is overridden by an IPMIDECK_ environment variable or a --host / --port flag on the next boot, env and CLI always win. If config.yaml is malformed, ipmideck prints a warning to stderr and falls back to 0.0.0.0:3000.
The IPMIDECK_SERVER_HOST and IPMIDECK_SERVER_PORT environment variables use the IPMIDECK_ prefix. See Configuration for the full list of overrides.

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HTTPS with —gen-cert

--gen-cert generates a self-signed certificate and key, then exits. It does not start the server and does not turn HTTPS on by itself:
It writes a cert + key pair under data/certs/, records their paths into the server block of config.yaml, and prints three lines:
To actually serve over HTTPS, set server.https: true in config.yaml and restart ipmideck. HTTPS is never enabled automatically.

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Demo mode

--demo runs ipmideck against simulated hardware instead of real BMCs, useful for evaluating the dashboard without any servers wired up:
Demo mode is set very early, before any subcommand branch, so the whole app (config and the running server) sees it.

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Resetting the admin password

reset-password interactively creates or updates the admin login, then exits without ever starting the server:
It prompts for Username: and then New password: (hidden input). If an account already exists, it updates that user’s password and prints Password updated for <username>; otherwise it creates the user and prints User <username> created.

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Development auto-reload

--reload is a development-only fast path: it hands off to uvicorn’s own auto-reloading supervisor and returns. It intentionally skips the single-instance port guard described below, because the reloader runs its own supervisor process.
--reload is for development only. Because it bypasses the single-instance guard, run it on a host where no other ipmideck instance is already bound to the same port.

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Exit codes

On the serve path (not --reload), ipmideck runs a single-instance guard before binding. If the port is already in use it prints an error to stderr and exits 1. If the bind fails because the address is unavailable or not permitted, it prints a distinct error and also exits 1.

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Next steps