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02. Installing INDI

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gordtulloch edited this page Oct 15, 2026 · 2 revisions

Installing INDI on Different Platforms

Galileo talks to hardware through two protocols: INDI and ASCOM Alpaca. This article covers installing an INDI server on each supported platform. For bridging Windows-only ASCOM/COM drivers onto the network as Alpaca devices, see 03. Installing an ASCOM Alpaca Bridge.

Installing INDI on macOS

To install INDI on macOS, the most common method is using Homebrew. Open your Terminal and run the following commands to tap the INDI repository and install the binaries:

brew tap indilib/indi
brew install indi-bin

Alternatively, you can install INDI via MacPorts by running sudo port install indi after installing MacPorts. For a standalone server GUI without compiling, you can download pre-built distributions like INDIWebManagerApp or INDIStarter from their respective GitHub or SourceForge pages, which bundle the server and drivers into a native macOS application. If you prefer building from source, you can clone the indi repository and use cmake to compile it, or use community scripts like indi-mac or kstars-on-osx-craft to build the server and drivers using Craft.

Installing INDI on Linux

If you'd rather not assemble the stack yourself, the easiest route on a Linux MiniPC is the same prebuilt image used on Raspberry Pi:

  • Stellarmate X (www.stellarmate.com) — a commercial small-form-factor MiniPC appliance preloaded with Stellarmate OS (INDI, INDI Web Manager, and KStars/Ekos preinstalled).
  • Astroberry Server — a free, community-maintained image with the same INDI + INDI Web Manager + KStars/Ekos stack, available at astroberry.io. Astroberry originated as a Raspberry Pi image (see the Raspberry Pi section below) but also runs fine on generic x86 MiniPC hardware.

See the Raspberry Pi section below for more on both — they're the same images either way, just running on x86 instead of ARM.

If you'd rather install onto an existing Linux install (desktop distro or a MiniPC you're setting up yourself), the INDI project maintains an official PPA for Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indi-full gsc

indi-full pulls in the complete set of third-party device drivers along with the core indiserver binary; if you only need a handful of drivers you can install individual packages instead (e.g. indi-eqmod, indi-asi, indi-gphoto) to save space on constrained devices. For other distributions (Fedora, Arch, openSUSE), check the INDI download page for distro-specific packages, or build from source with cmake as described above for macOS — the INDI core and third-party driver repositories (indi-3rdparty) build the same way on any Linux target.

Once installed, run the server directly for a specific driver set:

indiserver -v indi_eqmod_telescope indi_asi_ccd

For day-to-day use, install INDI Web Manager (sudo apt-get install indiwebmanager or pip install indiweb) instead of starting indiserver by hand — it runs as a service, and lets you save/start/stop driver profiles from a web UI on port 8624. This is exactly what Stellarmate X and Astroberry run under the hood.

Installing INDI on Raspberry Pi

The two easiest ways to get INDI up and running on Raspberry Pi:

  • Stellarmate OS (www.stellarmate.com) — a commercial, prebuilt Raspberry Pi OS image with INDI, INDI Web Manager, and KStars/Ekos preinstalled. If you'd rather not manage a bare Pi, the same image ships preloaded on Stellarmate's "Stellarmate X" MiniPC appliances — see the Linux section above.
  • Astroberry Server — a free, community-maintained image with the same INDI + INDI Web Manager + KStars/Ekos stack, available at astroberry.io. This is its native platform — it originated as a Raspberry Pi project, and also runs fine on x86 MiniPC hardware (see the Linux section above).

Alternatively you can flash Raspberry Pi OS Lite yourself and follow the Linux apt instructions above — this gives the smallest footprint and is the recommended path for a headless, minimal INDI server dedicated to a single Pier. Harald's astrophotography site also hosts minimal pre-built INDI-only images for various Pi models:

https://sites.google.com/view/haraldsastrophotography/software/hotspot-based-images?pli=1&authuser=0

Whichever route you choose, point Galileo's device connection dialog at the Pi's IP address on port 7624 (the INDI default) once indiserver or INDI Web Manager is running.

Installing INDI on Windows

Currently there is no version of INDI for Windows. We suggest running a Raspberry Pi (or any Linux box) with INDI on your telescope to provide INDI access to your directly-connected hardware — see "Installing INDI on Linux" or "Installing INDI on Raspberry Pi" above. Galileo then connects to that INDI server over the network from Windows exactly as it would from any other platform.

If your equipment only has Windows ASCOM/COM drivers and no INDI driver exists for it, don't run INDI at all — instead bridge those drivers onto the network as Alpaca devices. See 03. Installing an ASCOM Alpaca Bridge.

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