Operations

The two operating states

Appliance Mode is the normal state: Launcher full-screen when it is installed, or the configuration and diagnostics environment when it is not. This is what an operator or customer sees day to day.
Maintenance Mode is the local service state. It exposes conventional troubleshooting tools — terminal, file manager, network controls, logs, hardware tools, and a browser — without turning the appliance into a general-purpose desktop.

Everything a technician needs from either state is under MultiTaction in the desktop menu.

Install Apps installs Showcase, Canvus, and Launcher as Approved Packages, in that order. Only MultiTaction-authorised products and drivers can be installed this way — the normal appliance account cannot install arbitrary software.
Update Software checks for and applies updates to MT software already on the appliance. Products are approved by name, not by version, so this always offers the current signed release of an already-installed product rather than a specific version pinned at installation time.
Technician → Display Layout writes the display configuration (xorg.conf, screen.xml, and config.txt) for standard wall layouts — single screen, 3x1 or 5x1 portrait, 3x2 or 3x3 landscape — assigning touch addresses in reading order. If the wall does not come back, or the change is not confirmed, it restores the previous configuration automatically.
Technician → Tools opens each installed product's configuration file and log directory directly.
Diagnostics exports a sanitised support bundle and shows current service state and system logs.

Networking

The appliance distinguishes two network roles, and neither routes or forwards traffic to the other until a technician explicitly assigns roles:

Uplink — Ethernet or Wi-Fi, used for customer-network traffic, internet access, software installation, and Teleport. Supports both IPv4 and IPv6.
Wall Network — Ethernet only, used for touch and wall-device traffic. IPv4 only. Isolated from the Uplink until a technician configures it.

All interfaces try DHCP first, so the appliance can reach basic management connectivity without a technician guessing final roles in advance. Final network configuration — which interface plays which role, and any static addressing — is Deployment Configuration, set on site or over Teleport.

Audio

Audio uses PipeWire and WirePlumber, with PulseAudio compatibility for applications that expect it. The appliance sends audio only to the device a technician explicitly selects — it never switches outputs on its own or falls back to a different device if the selected one disappears. If sound stops after a hardware change, check that the selected output is still the intended device rather than expecting the appliance to have chosen a replacement.

Remote support (Teleport)

Every appliance enrolls automatically as a Teleport-supportable node on first boot, using a capability sealed into the image that permits registration only — it does not grant MultiTaction support staff any access by itself. Support staff authenticate separately and receive centrally audited, role-based access through Teleport; there is no shared fleet password. See the security report for the full access model.

A local control disables Teleport enrollment for sites that require it. Disabling it removes MultiTaction's ability to reach the appliance remotely — on-site or customer-remote access becomes the only path to that machine.

Power and performance

The appliance disables automatic sleep, hibernation, screen blanking, and display power management, and runs a performance-first power policy for CPU, GPU, USB, and network. This is deliberate: a wall display is expected to be always-on, and frame consistency and touch latency take priority over idle power savings.

Updates

Ubuntu security updates install automatically in a maintenance window. Everything else — the kernel/NVIDIA driver pair, optional hardware drivers, and MT Applications — updates only through Update Software or controlled qualification, never automatically. The appliance never reboots on its own to apply an update; a live wall is never interrupted without an operator choosing to restart it.

Only the stable MultiTaction release channel is configured. Reaching an unqualified build requires deliberate manual intervention — an appliance never follows the latest build automatically.

Diagnostics and support bundles

Diagnostics in the MultiTaction menu produces one sanitised support bundle containing hardware inventory, driver and package versions, Deployment Configuration, service status, and bounded logs. It never includes secrets, credentials, customer file names, or application databases — it is safe to hand to MultiTaction support without a separate review pass.

System logs are retained locally, capped at 500 MB, so useful history survives without risking the system filesystem filling up. The appliance does not send any operating-system health telemetry on its own; the only thing that leaves the appliance automatically is the crash reporting already built into each installed MT Application.

Application data and repair

Customer and application state lives on its own persistent filesystem, separate from the operating system, and is mapped automatically to each application's expected storage path — packages do not need deployment-specific configuration to find it. This is what makes Repair Installation possible: replacing the operating system does not touch this filesystem.