Install the phone surface and the host bridge.

Two-part installation

Drover consists of a native iPhone app and a small companion daemon that runs beside Herdr as your user. Drover for Mac and droverd for Linux are available now; the iPhone app is coming to the App Store.

Compatibility

iPhone
iOS 18 or later. Desk and iPad clients are deferred; macOS and Linux run Drover Host.
Host
Drover for Mac on a Mac with Apple silicon, or droverd on Linux (x86_64 or arm64).
Herdr
User-installed official Herdr at or above Drover’s published capability floor. Drover never bundles, installs, patches, or falls back to a private runtime or direct PTY.
Network
Pairing works on your LAN or remotely (QR or a 14-character code). Terminal control, Inbox, and approvals are free on your first paired host, over the LAN or the end-to-end encrypted relay; Drover Pro adds every host beyond the first, push notifications, and the Live Activity.

Install droverd on Linux

curl -fsSL https://newdrover.com/install.sh | sh

It checks the signed release, installs droverd for your user (no root, no sudo) and starts it under systemd --user. Needs curl and OpenSSL 3; x86_64 or arm64, glibc 2.28 or newer.

Prefer to install by hand:

  1. 1

    Download the binary

    Get droverd-<version>-<triple> (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu or aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu) from https://newdrover.com/releases/<version>/. The same build also ships as droverd-<version>-<triple>.tar.gz with its licenses and provenance.

  2. 2

    Verify the checksum

    Check its SHA-256 (sha256sum) equals the sha256 for that triple in https://newdrover.com/releases/releases.json. By hand this trusts HTTPS alone; the one-line installer also verifies that manifest's signature (releases.json.sig) against Drover's release key.

  3. 3

    Install and start it

    chmod +x the binary, then run ./droverd-<version>-<triple> install, which copies droverd into ~/.config/drover/bin and starts the systemd --user service.

Installation flow

  1. 1

    Install Drover Host

    On macOS, install Drover for Mac (Apple silicon). On Linux, run the one-line installer above.

  2. 2

    Start beside Herdr

    On Linux, run droverd as your normal user; Drover for Mac runs it for you. It attaches to the compatible Herdr service; it does not replace or host your agents.

  3. 3

    Install Drover for iPhone

    Coming to the App Store. Get launch updates to know the moment it is live.

  4. 4

    Pair

    Scan the QR code or enter the 14-character code with iPhone — on the LAN or remotely — and compare the same verification phrase on both devices.

Before you connect away from home

  • Confirm the verified hostname shown on iPhone.
  • Keep Drover Host running in your user session.
  • Verify the current agent state before sending input.
  • Expect unavailable panes to explain their read-only state. Backgrounding suspends commands until foreground re-authenticates and resyncs; Drover never queues commands offline.

Need help?

Get Drover for iPhone the moment it's live.

Mac and Linux are ready to install today from this page — get launch updates for the iPhone app.

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