Set it up for me

1

Agree

I'm 18 or older. I agree to the Terms of Service and License Agreement, including individual arbitration (section 18), and I've read the Risk Disclosure and the Privacy Policy. I'm in the United States.

What you're buying: we create one server in your DigitalOcean account and install Charles on it. Charles is free, open-source software: this fee is only for setting it up. It isn't investment advice, Charles trades practice money until you turn on live trading yourself, and it can lose money.

Paying: on Stripe's secure page, which asks for your email for the receipt and this order's emails. We never see your card, and we don't keep your email.

Refunds: in full, on request, within 14 days of paying, and by themselves if your setup can't finish. Refund Policy

2

Pay

Waiting for the payment to come through. Changed your mind? Start over.

2

Payment successful

Thanks. You're all paid up.

Charles setup Paid, one time
Confirmation On its way to your email

3

Connect DigitalOcean

Make an account at DigitalOcean and add a card. DigitalOcean bills you for the server, about $6 a month.
Open API → Generate New Token. Pick custom scopes: droplet and ssh_key. Choose the shortest expiry.
Paste it below. It's used once to create your server and never saved.

Token Where

Log in from your own computer's terminal Optional

You can skip this: your server has a terminal in the browser, on DigitalOcean. To use ssh from your own computer instead, paste its public key here. The public key is safe to share, goes to DigitalOcean once, and isn't kept. Your private key never leaves your computer.

Windows, in PowerShell:

type $env:USERPROFILE\.ssh\id_ed25519.pub

Mac or Linux, in Terminal:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

It says the file isn't there? Run ssh-keygen -t ed25519, press Enter at every question, then the line above again. Copy the one line that starts with ssh-ed25519.

SSH public key

4

Building your server

Creating it on DigitalOcean.

5

Your server is ready

Delete the token now. Open your tokens. We didn't keep it, and it's no longer needed.

Charles is installed. Three commands and it's running.

Open your server's terminal:

Open the console

A terminal in your browser, already logged in as root. Added an SSH key? works too.

Run these, one at a time:

nano ~/charles/.env      # paste your free Alpaca paper keys, then Ctrl+X, Y, Enter
charles-start
charles-login            # a one-time link to your dashboard