Quickstart

This page takes a fresh Debian or Ubuntu host to a working instance with one MCP server and one connected client.

1. Install

sudo apt install mcprack mcp-server-filesystem mcprack-mcp-server-filesystem

The package creates the mcprack system user, generates a SECRET_KEY in /etc/mcprack/env, creates an initial administrator admin and writes its password to /etc/mcprack/admin-credentials (readable by root only). The companion package mcprack-mcp-server-filesystem registers the filesystem server in the catalog (see Companion packages).

2. Open the portal

mcprack listens on 127.0.0.1:8912 only. Put a TLS reverse proxy in front of it (see Checklist for an internet-facing instance for a ready Apache vhost) and set the public address:

sudoedit /etc/mcprack/env
#   PUBLIC_BASE_URL=https://mcprack.example.com
sudo systemctl restart mcprack

Sign in as admin. Administrators must set up two-factor authentication before they can use the admin area (Two-factor authentication).

3. Pick a server and connect Claude Code

  1. In the catalog, tick Filesystem MCP Server and save.

  2. Create an API token with the scope proxy:access (user menu → API tokens).

  3. On your workstation:

export MCPRACK_TOKEN=mcr_...
claude mcp add --transport http --scope user filesystem \
    https://mcprack.example.com/proxy/mcp/1 \
    --header "Authorization: Bearer $MCPRACK_TOKEN"

The exact commands for your servers are shown on the View & Copy page of the claude-code client. See Connecting Claude Code.

4. Check it

sudo mcprack user config verify alice claude-code

The command does what the client will do (initialize then tools/list) for every URL in the configuration and prints one line per server.

Next steps