Getting started
Introduction
Vortexa is a self-hosted, multi-node VPN control panel for VPS operators. It bundles the whole workflow — provisioning, enforcement, money and support — into one dark, fast web console plus a Telegram storefront.
Operators manage users, protocols, quotas and payments in the browser. End users receive configs, subscription links and QR codes, and can self-serve through the bot. Nodes are configured from the panel and never touched by hand once joined.
- One master, many nodes. The master auto-registers itself as
local-01; remote boxes run the standalone node agent. - Protocols in one form. SSH / SSH-WS, VMess, VLESS and Trojan accounts are created from a single dialog with shared expiry, quota and device limits.
- Business built in. Plans, invoices, wallets, coupons, redeem codes, referrals and provider cost tracking with profit reporting.
- Release-only updates. Updates come exclusively from published releases of the official repository, applied from the VPS CLI — never from the web UI.
Vortexa targets people who resell or operate VPN access at small to medium scale: one panel, a handful to a few dozen nodes, hundreds to thousands of accounts. If you are running a single box for personal use, most of the business layer will sit unused — but accounts, protocols and monitoring still work exactly the same.
| You are… | Start here |
|---|---|
| Setting up for the first time | Installation → First 30 minutes |
| Adding capacity | Nodes and Node agent |
| Starting to sell | Plans, Billing and the Telegram bot |
| Debugging a live problem | Alerts & logs then Troubleshooting |
Module map
The panel at a glance#
Every left-hand nav entry in the panel maps to a page in these docs. This is the full surface area:
Dashboard
Fleet health, active accounts, traffic totals, revenue and alerts on one screen.
Accounts
Create, edit, suspend, renew and bulk-manage user accounts across protocols and nodes.
Connections
Live sessions per account with source IPs, device counts and per-protocol breakdown.
Nodes
Add and provision worker VPS, watch health/latency, push config to the whole fleet.
Node analytics / Infrastructure
Per-node traffic, earnings, capacity, NIC usage, benchmarks and the global map.
Hosts, CDNs, Routing, Blocklist
Domains, port sets, CDN endpoints, Xray outbounds/rules and blocked destinations.
Plans, Invoices, Payments, Wallet
Sellable packages, order lifecycle, payment proofs and per-user balances.
Gifts, Redeem codes, Referrals, Providers
Growth tooling plus upstream cost tracking for profit reporting.
Users & Support
Panel logins, roles/resellers and inbound support tickets.
Bot
Telegram token, storefront behaviour, trial rules and admin notifications.
Settings
Brand, domains, ports, enforcement, SSH banner and every other global toggle.
Alerts, Logs, Backups, Update
Operational surface: alerting, audit trail, system logs, snapshots and release info.
Every feature page follows the same shape, so nothing is skipped:
- What it does — the operator-facing purpose in plain language.
- How it works — the internals: endpoints, fields, scripts, services.
- How to set it up — numbered steps you can follow on a live install.
- Gotchas — the failure modes that actually happen in production.
Command conventions
autoscript run on the panel VPS as root. Commands inside a node section run on that node’s VPS. Anything in the panel UI is written as a path, e.g. Settings → SSH banner.| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | React 19, TanStack Start / Router, Tailwind CSS v4, shadcn-style UI |
| Backend | FastAPI (Python), SQLite, systemd services |
| Proxy | Xray-core, Nginx, Dropbear / OpenSSH, SSH-WS, ZIVPN |
| Nodes | Python node agent with signed heartbeat to the panel |
| Bot | Telegram bot for self-service and admin alerts |
Vortexa has one official source: github.com/Ghostrelicc/Vortexa. The repository URL, brand identity and SSH banner attribution are hardcoded and cannot be changed from Settings, the CLI or the installer.
- On every start and every update the panel verifies the install still tracks the official repository and carries the official identity.
- Installs that fail the check are marked “Unofficial installation” in the panel, warned about in the CLI, and refused updates.
- The banner line
Powered by GRVPN Vortexais always included and cannot be removed. - Running your own fork is possible — it just will not identify itself as, or receive updates as, GRVPN Vortexa.