Artica Meta is the centralized global management console for Artica infrastructure — originally designed to centralize and control multiple Artica Proxy servers from a single web interface.
Artica Meta provides a single pane of glass to administer and coordinate distributed Artica services and other systems across your network — not just artica-proxy instances.
- Connects and manages multiple Artica nodes from one dashboard.
- Secure communications
- Allows global updates of versions.
- Enables centralized white-lists and global web-filtering settings.
In addition to managing Artica Proxy servers, Artica Meta can also coordinate and manage remote Debian servers that do not have Artica Proxy installed — for system-wide administration tasks such as:
This lets admins treat both Artica and non-Artica Debian hosts as managed resources through the same Meta console.
(Note: this assumes the remote Debian host has an agent or connectivity required by Meta for remote task execution — typically over SSH/remote control protocols.)
This extends Meta’s usefulness beyond just proxy infrastructure, enabling broader Debian fleet management alongside Artica Proxy orchestration.
- Enable the Artica Meta service on your Artica server
The installation of Artica Meta is performed via the Features section; it simply consists of enabling a feature.
- Artica repository behavior
Artica Meta is in charge of downloading and maintaining all software components published by Artica Tech for the Artica platform.
- Move the repository location.
The Artica Meta working repository directory is required to store Artica updates (major releases, hotfixes, and software packages for the various Debian versions).This directory should provide at least 10 GB of available disk space.
Network Agents, also known as Debian Agents, receive commands from the Meta server and report metadata about their system status and inventory.
- Deploy Debian Agents on your servers
Agents can be installed in three ways: via a Debian package (.deb), remotely using SSH, or directly through the console of an Artica client server.
- IP-based access control
Restricts which IP addresses can connect to the Debian Agent API
- Reverse-proxy compliance
If you want to use a reverse proxy, the Meta server can be configured to route its connections to the network agent through this reverse proxy.
- Upgrade Agent versions
When you update Artica, the agent is included in the package.
As a result, updating Artica on your Meta server may make a newer version of the agent available.
- Upgrade Agent versions from a group
When you update Artica, the agent is included in the package.
As a result, updating Artica on your Meta server may make a newer version of the agent available in groups.
- Updates black-list
The updates blacklist is a soft deny mechanism that prevents Artica software packages/Debian package from being pushed to a specific agent node, while leaving all monitoring, operational, and binary upgrade capabilities intact.
When you connect an Artica appliance to a Meta server, additional options become available.
- Manage snapshots
In the Artica context, a snapshot is a package that allows saving and restoring all the settings managed by an Artica server.
The Artica Node is a lightweight Debian-based system that can be easily installed using an ISO image.
Once installed, the system provides only a minimal system console to connect the machine to Artica Meta.