Work Cockpit

Getting started

Download Work Cockpit from this site and open it. Your server account is local to your Mac. Organization activation uses a Work Cockpit account and sends organization name and contact details, an installation identifier, reported plan, app version, and aggregate server/authentication counts and module names for organization, licensing and product usage records. Local passwords and server credentials are not sent. The Mac App Store listing is not available yet.

Adding servers

Servers › Add server. A server is a name, an address, and one or more ways in:

• SSH — terminal, file upload, metrics, patching, scheduled commands.
• VNC and RDP — a screen, for the machines that need one.

Credentials are stored in the macOS Keychain, never in the app’s own files. The first time you reach a host over SSH its key is pinned; if that key ever changes, the connection is refused rather than quietly accepted.

Free keeps up to five servers. The cap is on adding — an installation that is already over it keeps everything and is simply blocked from adding more.

Moving between machines

Settings › Backup & transfer writes an encrypted file containing your servers, credentials, SSH host-key pins and settings. Save it locally, carry it to another computer, or upload the encrypted file to your own Google Drive.

The file is sealed with a password you choose (Argon2id + XChaCha20-Poly1305) or to a certificate you hold. Keep the password or matching private key separately; it is needed to import the backup. A full backup includes local accounts, so share it only with someone who should own that installation.

For teammates, use a scoped team file instead of a full backup. Windows and Linux release work follows the macOS release.

Subscription sharing (planned)

Apple subscription sharing between the iPhone and Mac App Store apps is planned. Neither App Store listing is available yet, so the purchase and pairing steps below are not currently available.

When App Store versions are available, the direct download will be able to pair a subscription because an installation outside the App Store has no store receipt. The planned flow uses the app’s Subscriptions tab:

1. In the App Store copy: open Subscriptions and choose Use this subscription on another computer. It shows a six-character code, good for ten minutes.
2. In the direct copy: open Subscriptions, choose I bought this on the App Store, and type the code.

The direct copy checks Apple’s signed purchase and refreshes it periodically. This pairing feature is not available until the App Store release launches.

What travels is Apple’s receipt: a transaction and a product. Not a server, not an address, not a credential.

Team server Pro

On the Pro plan your Mac can serve its fleet to your colleagues. It is the part of this product that has no equivalent elsewhere: teams normally get this by pushing their infrastructure through a vendor’s cloud. Here the server is your machine, and we are not in the path at all.

1. Team › Members — add a user for the person.
2. Team › Team server — set the address colleagues should connect to, then Start.
3. Grant — pick the servers, features and read or write access for that person.
4. Invite — copy the four lines it gives you and send them however you normally talk.

About the port

The default is 8443, not 443. A sandboxed Mac app is not allowed to bind a port below 1024 — that needs administrator rights no App Store app has. If you want 443 reachable from outside, forward 443 to 8443 on your router; the connection is TLS either way.

Read and write

Read permits only the selected Metrics, Logs and Files features. Live metrics and read-only files are served by the team host without sharing credentials. Files are confined to the remote login home and downloads to 4 MiB. Write may also grant Terminal, Commands or Patch and share the credentials needed for those features.

Revoking access

Revoke a device and it stops working the next time it connects. Every sync stamps a 14-day expiry. An expired snapshot loses its imported fleet inside the app. Credentials already shared with a write member can still be used outside the app; rotate server credentials when that access must end.

Joining a team

If a colleague runs the team server, you do not need a paid plan and you do not need a seat. Install the current direct macOS release from this site. Choose Connect to a team server and paste the four lines they sent you:

Address:     ops.example.com
Port:        8443
Invite code: ABCD-EFGH-JKMN
Fingerprint: 0b30557a9fc4e90e…

Add the username and password they added for you and press Connect. The app enrols, makes that username and password your local sign-in, and pulls down the servers and credentials you were granted — the live connection synchronizes the scoped fleet. The transfer is encrypted end to end between the two machines.

The invite works once. The fingerprint is what stops someone else answering in your colleague’s place, and the code is what stops a stranger enrolling — neither is much use without the other. From then on you sign in with that same username and password, even with the team server unreachable.

Servers you added yourself stay yours. Leaving the team removes only what the team gave you.

Without a network connection to the team host, its administrator can export a password-protected .wcteam file for a signed-in colleague to import. It expires after 14 days, has no early revocation channel, and does not support the live read-only proxies. Verify the sender separately; the file has password-based integrity protection and no issuer signature.

What leaves your machine

Short version: your infrastructure does not.

• Never sent: server addresses, hostnames, SSH keys, passwords, terminal output, metrics, logs.
• No cloud channel between installations. Two copies of this app do not talk through us — a team connects directly to the machine serving it.
• Sent for organization and licensing records: organization name and contact details, installation identifier, reported plan, app version, and aggregate server/authentication counts and module names. Apple and Freemius process purchases for their respective channels. A reported plan is not proof of a purchase.
• Sent, if you open a ticket: the subject, description, category, plan and organization name you provide. Do not include infrastructure details unless you intend to share them with support.

Credentials do travel to the teammates you grant them to — that is what makes the team feature work, and it happens only because you chose that person and those servers. They go from your machine to theirs, directly. We never hold them and never see them.

Plans & billing

The Mac App Store listing, Apple billing and subscription management are not available yet. Pro licences for the direct macOS download, Windows and Linux are available through the licence page.

The 14-day trial and Apple subscription sharing will be available only if the relevant App Store releases launch.

If a subscription lapses, nothing is deleted. The app keeps every server you have and simply stops letting you add more, exactly as the Free tier does.

Support tickets

Tickets are bought, not included: no plan comes with one. They are $5 each or five for $25 — the same price per ticket, bought in one go rather than five — and they never expire, so an unused one is still there next year.

Open one from Support in the app. A ticket includes its subject, description, category, plan and organization name. If we cannot answer without knowing more, we will ask you a question, not ask for access.