Bring a gateway online: flash → claim → configure → verify

Your single start-here for taking a gateway from the box to reading live machine data. This is the on-site path. It links the detailed how-to for each step so you don’t have to hunt for them.

The gateway only makes outbound connections. No inbound ports are opened on your plant network, nothing to expose, no firewall holes.

Before you start

The gateway hardware (the palm-sized Spall gateway) with the Spall image on it. Spall supplies the image. If you’re flashing it yourself, follow set up a gateway: hardware to green.
A claim token from the app, Gateways → Claim a device (admin). Short-lived, single-use.
Machine details, each machine’s IP + protocol, and which network port faces the machines on a dual-NIC box.

The four steps

1. Flash & boot

Flash the Spall image, seat the module, wire the uplink port (role: uplink in config, toward the internet) and the plant/OT port (role: plant, toward the machine switch) on dual-NIC boxes. The gateway enforces this itself: the plant port can never hijack the internet route, no matter what the machine network’s DHCP offers. Full walk-through, including Raspberry Pi Imager settings: hardware to green.

2. Claim the device

Get a claim token (Gateways → Claim a device) and hand it to the gateway, either drop the provisioning file on the boot partition, or use the on-device console at http://<gateway-ip>:8080 while it’s unclaimed. Token mechanics and the gateway list view: manage gateways: the gateway home.

3. Configure your machines

Use the Connect-a-Machine wizard (Gateways page or Getting Started): pick the gateway → choose the protocol → fill the connection form → test connection → configure tags → push. For tags, start with a machine template (the fastest path for common machine types, tags, roles, and derived calcs pre-filled) or import a CSV if you already have a tag list from RSLogix/TIA Portal/Kepware/ Ignition. Add tags manually if neither fits. Editing tags and connection details later lives on the gateway’s own Sources & tags tab. Detail: manage gateways: the gateway home. Don’t know a machine’s tag addresses and the machine is on OPC-UA? The wizard’s opt-in Discover tags assist can browse it and suggest candidates (EtherNet/IP and other protocols don’t support this browse yet, use a template or CSV import for those), run tag discovery has the full flow.

4. Verify it’s green

Confirm tags are reading live values from the gateway’s own Status tab. Once the tags read and the gateway shows online there, you’re done, data is flowing. Detail: manage gateways: the gateway home.

Already have the tags?

If a machine’s tags are already connected somewhere else in Spall, from an earlier wizard run, or landed at a temporary spot before you built out the rest of Plant Structure, you don’t need to run the wizard again to get them onto the right machine.

From the machine’s side: open its Node page (Plant Structure → click the machine, or search it from anywhere) and click Attach signals in the header. Search and multi-select from every tag already in the plant. Each one shows where it lives today and what it’s fed from, so you can tell “not on a machine yet” apart from “already on a different machine.” Confirm to move the selection onto this machine in one step.
From the tag’s side: open its Measurement Detail page and use Move to machine to move just that one tag. Pick the machine and confirm.

Either way, a moved tag keeps its recorded history, readings, alarm rules, and everything else built on it keep working exactly as before. Only the rollups (OEE, KPIs) for the machine it leaves and the one it joins change, and only from the point of the move onward.

If something’s stuck

Gateway not online? Check the uplink network and that the claim token was accepted (the Gateways list shows claim state). If it’s on cellular or just failed over from wired/wifi, see device offline or on cellular: reading the uplink status.
A tag won’t read? Re-run the connection test on the gateway’s Sources & tags tab. Confirm IP, protocol, and the plant/OT-side wiring. Tag discovery helps find correct addresses.
Need help from Spall support? Support can pull diagnostics remotely with your consent, nothing is open by default. If a hands-on look is needed, support may send you a small plug-in access device that only works while it’s physically connected to your gateway.