# Add a server you already have > Not every server lives in a cloud account. You might have your own hardware in an office or a rack, or a machine at a provider InfraNest does not connect to… Source: https://infranest.io/docs/add-a-server-you-already-have Last updated: 2026-10-08 --- This article is for anyone with a server InfraNest doesn't already know about — your own hardware, a rack in an office, or a machine at a provider InfraNest doesn't connect to. You can add it and monitor it just like any other server. ## Overview - Add a server by name even without a cloud account behind it - Track it in your monitoring list, marked **Self-managed** - Edit its details any time without losing its history, alerts or agent - Install the agent to get full metrics, just like any other server ## Add it 1. Go to **Monitoring** and choose **Add monitor**. 2. Pick **A server** from the monitor types. ![Add a server you already have](/media/51236ba6-1f6c-443f-9004-7f6c2418abd2) 3. Choose it from the list — or, if it is not there, **It is not in this list** and give it a name. 4. Choose how to collect its numbers. For a server with no cloud account behind it there is only one answer, and the page says why. 5. Press **Turn monitoring on**. A name is the only thing we need. You can add an IP address and a location too, purely so you recognise it in the list — we do not connect to either. The server appears in your monitoring list straight away, marked **Self-managed**. It is deliberately not on the **Servers** page. That page is for machines in a connected cloud account — powering them on and off, backups, snapshots, volumes, cost — and none of that exists for a server we have no account for. A count on that page links back here, so it is never lost. ## Change its details Made a typo, or did the machine move? You can change everything you told us about it — nothing is lost, and its history, alert rules and agent stay exactly as they are. 1. Open the server from **Monitoring → Servers**. 2. Open the ⋯ menu at the top and choose **Edit details**. (If monitoring is switched off for it, the **Edit details** button is in the middle of the page instead.) 3. Change what you need, then press **Save**. You can change: - **Name** — how the server appears in lists, alerts and reports. - **IPv4 address** and **IPv6 address** — so you can recognise the server and copy its address. We check that what you type is a real address, but we never connect to it. - **City** and **Country** — shown with a flag next to the server wherever its location appears. - **Datacenter or rack** — any label that helps you find the machine, such as "Office rack 3". - **Server type** — a model or a short description, such as "Dell R640". Leave a field empty to remove it. The same **Edit details** option is in the **Actions** menu when you open the server from its other page. Every change is written to the **Audit Log**, with what the value was before and what it is now. > [!NOTE] > Servers in a connected cloud account work differently. Their address, location and type come from the provider and are read again every time InfraNest syncs, so they cannot be edited here — change them in the provider's own panel and they show up at the next sync. Their name can be changed on the server's page. ## Remove it again A server you added by hand exists nowhere but InfraNest, so deleting it here is the whole of it — nothing happens to the machine, because there is no account for us to reach it through. 1. From **Monitoring → Servers**, open the ⋯ menu on its row and choose **Delete server**. 2. Or open the server and use the ⋯ menu at the top. 3. Or, on the **Servers** page, open it and use **Power → Delete server** — there you type the name to confirm, like any other delete. Deleting removes its record, everything measured about it and its alert rules. If you would rather keep the history, **Stop tracking** hides it and keeps all of it — see [Remove a server from InfraNest](remove-a-server). ## Then install the agent On its own, an added server is just a name. The agent is what makes it useful — install it and you get everything InfraNest measures on any other machine: - CPU, memory, disk space and load - Which services are running, and why any of them failed - The heaviest processes - What is filling the disk - Alert rules, and a warning if the server stops reporting at all - Its size — how many CPUs, how much memory and how much disk it has — at the top of the server page See [Install the server agent, step by step](install-the-agent-step-by-step). The command is the same one you would use anywhere else. Until the agent is installed, the dot next to the server's name stays grey: there is no cloud account to ask, so nothing has told InfraNest how the server is doing. Once the agent checks in, the dot turns green. If the agent stops checking in, it turns red. ## What a self-managed server cannot do There is no provider account behind it, so there is nothing for us to ask on your behalf. That means no: - power actions — start, stop and reboot - backups or snapshots - rebuilds or rescue mode - costs Those controls are greyed out rather than hidden, so it is clear they exist and simply do not apply here. Everything the agent measures works exactly as it does on a cloud server. The agent has never cared where a machine runs. ## Servers kept when you removed an integration When you remove a cloud integration, servers with the agent installed are kept by default and become self-managed servers — see [Remove an integration](remove-an-integration). They show up here, in your monitoring list, marked **Self-managed**, with their history, alert rules, tags and agent intact. One difference from a server you added by hand: a kept server keeps the price it had, as a price you can edit, so your cost report does not lose it. If you connect the same cloud account again later, the server is linked to it again, rather than added a second time. ## Why not just pick a provider from the list? Because it would be wrong everywhere afterwards. The server would carry another company's logo, its cost would be counted against an account it is not in, the monitoring page would claim we were collecting from a provider API that will never answer, and the power buttons would offer to reboot something we cannot reach. **Self-managed** says the true thing instead: we know about this machine, and we do not manage it.