How to Get Started with Domotz

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Domotz Onboarding Guide: Setting up Domotz

The Domotz Onboarding Guide will help you deploy Domotz in your network quickly and efficiently.

Once deployed, you will be able to:

  • Discover all the devices on your network
  • Choose the devices to monitor
  • Get a network topology
  • Create and manage alerts on your network devices
  • Connect remotely to your devices without the need to open ports on your router or install specific software on them

Note that this article focuses on a quick, single-Collector setup to get you up and running. It assumes the account owner is configuring the system and no team members are added. We hope you enjoy the Domotz Onboarding Guide.

When getting started with Domotz, it’s important to know what we do. Domotz is a cloud-based service that continuously and securely communicates with a network collector. The cloud service is where information about the network you are monitoring is stored and accessed. Accessing your network information is done through the Domotz application, which can be hosted on Windows or Mac OS, as well as your favorite web browser, or even iOS and Android mobile devices.

As a cloud-based service, you’ll first need to create an account. Next, install a Collector on the network you want to monitor. Finally, configure both the application and the Collector to take full advantage of all the features Domotz offers.

1 Domotz Account Creation

Visit https://portal.domotz.com and click on “Sign up”:


To register and fill in the mandatory fields: provide an email address, which will serve as your login, and secure your account with a strong password:

At this point, your account has been created and you will be automatically logged into your Domotz Webapp portal. You can always return to this page by visiting portal.domotz.com/webapp/.

The next step is to install your Domotz Collector.

In order to monitor your assets with Domotz, you need to install a Collector on your network. The Domotz Collector is a light-weight software which can be installed on various Operating Systems. The Domotz Collector receives commands from the Domotz cloud service to scan, monitor and connect to systems on the network. It is important to note that this Collector will scan the network that it is associated with. For instance, if you install the Windows Collector on a PC, the collector will scan the network(s) the Windows PC is currently attached to.

Once you complete the account creation, you will be redirected to the page where you can download your Collector. Select your operating system and follow the installation instructions.

For simplicity, this guide will go through the process of installing the Windows Collector. Instructions for other Collector types are available on the “Add Collector” page within portal.domotz.com.

2.1 Windows Collector Installation

If the installer was downloaded in the last 6 hours, it will be automatically activated, and the Collector Name will be set as the collector host.

If the installer does not automatically activate the collector, please open your preferred browser and go to http://127.0.0.1:3000. It will ask you to log in with your Domotz Account and will guide you to an activation wizard.

At this point the Domotz Collector will start scanning your network.

If you see an orange bar at the top of your screen after activating your Collector, the Collector is having trouble connecting to the Domotz Cloud.

The services that are failing to connect are listed under Collector > Discovery:



To ensure continuous and accurate monitoring, please review this article: https://help.domotz.com/tips-tricks/unblock-outgoing-connections-on-firewall/

3.1 Device Discovery

Upon activation, the Domotz Collector will begin its initial scan of the networks associated with its host. Please wait a few minutes for the initial scan to complete. The time needed for each scan varies depending on the size of the network and the number of devices on that network.

3.1.1 Per Location Model

All discovered devices are automatically managed. With the per-location model, you don’t need to add or remove devices from the managed list. This is the default model for new accounts. If you’d like to use the per-device model instead, reach out to our sales team, and we’ll enable it for you.

3.1.2 Per Device Model

During the trial period – and only during the trial period – all discovered devices are automatically added as managed devices. Once the trial period ends, any new Collector or newly discovered devices will not be added as managed devices automatically. You will be able to manually choose which devices you want to manage.

To select devices for monitoring, navigate the Collector Settings menu, under the Monitoring Configuration, click on the edit icon:

Here, you’ll see all discovered devices listed under the Discovered Devices section. Select the devices you intend to monitor and click Add. The selected devices will then move to the Managed Devices section:

You can add or remove managed devices at any time to adjust your monitored devices list.

In order to be able to view your site Network Topology map, you need to enable SNMP on all your managed switches.

Each brand/model has a specific way to set this up, but it is normally done through the device’s web-based graphic user interface, or from the command line.

Note: If you do not have local access to the managed switch configuration interface, you may be able to use Domotz Remote connections to connect to each device (using HTTP or SSH) in order to configure them.

Important note: By default, Domotz will try to use SNMP v2c with “Public/Private” as the community strings. If you used SNMP v1, v3 or have configured custom community strings, please see here how to add it to Domotz:
https://help.domotz.com/tips-tricks/how-to-set-custom-snmp-credentials-in-domotz/

Domotz builds your Network Topology Map from your managed switches. For this to work, enable SNMP on each managed switch. Domotz can then map switches that are either:

  • RFC4188 compliant
  • LLDP/CDP compliant

We also support mapping via Cloud and Local Integrations with:

Once the data is available, Domotz creates your site’s Network Topology Map. This can take several hours depending on the complexity of the network.

For more information on Domotz Network Topology, see this Knowledge Base article:
https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/network-topology/

Also, using SNMP data, Domotz can collect detailed information on each port within the managed switch, so you can monitor the site’s network traffic:

And, if you are using a PoE Switch, you will be able to monitor and control power to each port:

Enabling SNMP on other types of devices, such as Printers, NAS, and UPS will allow you to apply Domotz Pre-configured sensors on them to monitor them.

You will find the pre-configured sensors available under the SNMP tab within each device as appropriate.

Please see this article for further information on this subject: https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/pre-configured-snmp-sensors/

One of the main reasons to onboard Domotz is to receive notifications (alerts) when something on your network is not working as expected. Domotz handles this through Unified Alerts, described below.

Domotz’s Unified Alerts brings all of your alert configuration into one consistent, centralized experience across every device, collector, and event type.

With Unified Alerts you can:

  • Manage alert rules for devices, collectors, and device instances (such as ports and disks) from a single interface, at the account, collector, and device level.
  • Configure alert types that were previously fixed, including Controller Integration failures, Configuration Backup failures, and Custom Driver failures.
  • Use standardized severity levels (Critical, High, Medium, Low) to prioritize response consistently across all alerts.
  • Apply alert rules in bulk across many devices, and include them in Device Profiles so they roll out automatically to any device the profile is assigned to.
  • See open and resolved alerts directly inside Domotz with Active Alerts & History, filter by severity and time, and act without leaving the product.
  • Use Mobile Push Notification as a contact channel, alongside email, webhooks, ConnectWise, Halo PSA, Autotask, etc.

For a full overview and configuration details, see: Unified Alerts

When you activate your first collector, you must configure alerts to get notifications about network events. Navigate to the Webapp > Collectors > Select your Collector and open the Alerts tab:

Click on Collector Status (under Connectivity) and assign the rule called “Collector Status went down“:

Now if the collector is down for any reason you will be notified. To add and or remove contact channels from that alert rule, hover your mouse over the Collector Status Alert rule and edit it:

Inside the alert rule detail, you can edit the alert settings as you prefer; the same rule can be used with any number of collectors in the future:

Repeat the same for the other Network events:

  • Network Configuration
    • LAN DHCP
    • LAN DNS
    • LAN Gateway
    • WAN ISP
  • Security
    • New Device Discovery
    • TCP Open Port
    • UPnP Port Forwarding

The Collector Status event is an indication that the Domotz Collector on the Local Area Network is no longer communicating with the Domotz cloud service. Therefore, this is a must-have alert if you want to be notified if at least one of the following events happen:

– Issues at the ISP level
– Modem issue
– Router issue
– DNS issue (e.g. the Domotz Collector is not able to resolve Domotz cloud endpoints anymore)
– Issues on the hardware hosting the Domotz Collector

If the Domotz Collector is unable to communicate with the Domotz Cloud (the Collector is marked as DOWN), the device status is shown only as a snapshot and device-level alerts will not be triggered. This happens because the device status cannot be reported to the Cloud, preventing event notifications from being generated.

For more details about Network Alerts, please refer to this article: Network Alerts.

Same as the alerts for the collector/network level, you need to enable the Alert Rules for your devices for which you want to get notifications.

This device’s Alert Rules include the following event alerts:

  • Connectivity
    • Device Status
    • Heartbeat Lost
    • IP Address
    • Ping RTD Median Latency
    • Ping RTD Packet Loss
  • SNMP Sensors
  • TCP Ports
  • Monitoring Service Health
    • Device Configuration Change
    • Device Configuration Misalignment

Navigate to the Webapp > Collectors > Select your Collector > Alerts tab and open the Devices section:

At the Alert Rules column, click on Add next to the device you want to enable event alerts:

Select one of the events, for example, the Device Status:

Enable the rule Device Status went down:

Now, if the device is down for any reason, you will be notified. To add and/or remove contact channels from that alert rule, hover your mouse over the Device Status Alert rule and edit it:

Inside the alert rule detail, you can edit the alert settings as you prefer; the same rule can be used with any number of collectors in the future:

Repeat the same for the other Device events.

For more details about Device Alerts, please refer to this article: Device Alerts.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that you can remotely connect to all discovered devices in your network that expose at least one open port (service) to which you can connect.

For simplicity, we will focus on making a simple, direct connection to a device’s webpage.

To see the list of those, enter the “Remote Access” section:

From this view you will be able to get a list of the available devices to which you can connect to, and also to search for the service you might need, based on service protocol or device properties (Name, IP Address, MAC Address, Model, Location, and Zone):

And after clicking on the “Connect” button you’ll be redirected to the device login (in this case a web interface, since we clicked on port 80 of this Toshiba printer):

For more information about Remote Connections you might check this Knowledge Base article:
https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/remote-connection-https-rdp-telnet-ssh-tcp-tunnels/

3.10 AI Agents

Connect ChatGPT, Claude or other AI Agent that supports MCP servers to the Domotz MCP server (https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp) to let it operate your fleet.

When using tokens, treat them like a password. Anyone with the key can access your Domotz data within your account permissions. Revoke it any time from the MCP API keys page.

3.10.1 ChatGPT

Connect ChatGPT to the Domotz MCP server

  1. ChatGPT (Apps)
    • Open Apps (left menu or Settings → Apps) and search for “Domotz” — it is available as a pre-approved app. Open it, click Connect → Sign in with Domotz, then approve access. No key to copy.
  2. Codex / clients using a bearer token
    • For Codex or any client that cannot open an interactive login, generate an MCP API key and send it as a Bearer token in the Authorization header. Navigate to the Webapp > Account > Domotz MCP API > Create MCP API Key.
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "domotz": {
      "url": "https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_MCP_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

3.10.2 Claude

Connect Claude to the Domotz MCP server

  1. Claude.ai (Pro plan or higher)
    • Open Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector. Enter the name “Domotz” and the server URL https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp, then click Add and Connect. A Domotz login window opens — sign in and approve access.
  2. Claude Code (CLI) — sign in with OAuth
    • Run the command below, then run /mcp inside Claude Code to complete the browser sign-in. Use –scope user to enable it for every session:
      • claude mcp add --transport http --scope user domotz https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp
  3. Claude Code (CLI) — or use a bearer token
    • Navigate to the Webapp > Account > Domotz MCP API > Create MCP API Key.
    • pass it directly on the command line:
claude mcp add --transport http --scope user domotz https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_MCP_API_KEY>"

3.10.3 Other Clients

Any MCP-capable client can connect to the Domotz MCP server (https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp) with a bearer token.

  1. Navigate to the Webapp > Account > Domotz MCP API > Create MCP API Key. 
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "domotz": {
      "url": "https://mcp.domotz.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_MCP_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

3.10.4 Use Natural Language to Manage your Networks

Once you have your AI Agent connected to the Domotz MCP server, you can start using natural language and leveraging AI to assist you with hints:

You can easily generate reports:

And much more.

We hope the Domotz Onboarding Guide was useful. Learn more about Domotz on the website and our blog.

If you have any questions or need assistance, the Support team will always be happy to help at support@domotz.com!

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