ALPON X5 AI Operating System
This page describes the ALPON X5's customized Raspberry Pi OS, emphasizing its optimized performance and the need to maintain system integrity.
Operating System
The ALPON X5 AI ships with PiGen X5, a customized operating system built on top of Raspberry Pi's official Debian Trixie image. This image is optimized for the CM5 compute module and includes full support for ALPON Cloud services out of the box.
Customized by Sixfab for the CM5 compute module. Includes pre-installed ALPON Cloud services for device connectivity, monitoring, and remote management.
The device comes with ALPON cloud services pre-installed. These services manage device connectivity, monitoring, and remote management features. Users should not remove Sixfab-provided applications, as this may destabilize the system.
All other applications can be freely installed or removed. Sixfab cannot guarantee system stability if its own services are uninstalled. For best results, we recommend using the system as provided. Any alterations could lead to reduced uptime, system instability, and compatibility issues that may affect both your applications and the ALPON X5 AI's reliability.
Software Architecture
The ALPON X5 AI is based on a 64-bit ARM architecture (arm64). All custom software, containers, and third-party packages must be compiled for or compatible with the arm64 platform.
Setting Up User Access
By default, the ALPON X5 AI device comes with a pre-configured alpon user and a password of sixfab.
This default user allows you to perform initial configuration on the device. However, for security reasons, you can choose to either update the password for this user or delete it entirely. Additionally, you can create a new user and grant them admin privileges.
alpon / sixfab credentials are shared across all ALPON X5 AI devices. Always change the password or replace this user before deploying to a production environment.
alpon user account is used internally by ALPON cloud services. You should not delete this user — doing so will break core system functions. If your security policy requires a separate user account, create a new user and grant it elevated privileges while keeping the alpon account intact.
Also, each ALPON X5 AI has a unique hostname based on its MAC address, in the format:
This ensures that multiple devices on the same network do not conflict. Follow these steps to create a user account, assign admin privileges, and connect to the device:
Before proceeding, ensure the device is provisioned via the Sixfab Connect platform.
📋 PrerequisiteALPON X5 AI Getting Started guide →Log in to the Sixfab Connect platform and open the remote terminal for your ALPON X5 AI.
The ALPON X5 AI device comes with the alpon user account, with the password set to sixfab. For enhanced security, you can:
passwd alpon
Enter the new password and confirm it.
sudo deluser alpon
After completing these steps, it is recommended to create a new user for further access and management (see Step 4).
Run the following command to create a new user:
adduser [USERNAME]
Replace [USERNAME] with the desired username. Example:
adduser test
- Enter a password when prompted.
- Confirm the password.
Assign Admin Privileges
Grant the new user admin rights by running:
echo "[USERNAME] ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" | sudo tee /etc/sudoers.d/[USERNAME]
Example:
echo "test ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" | sudo tee /etc/sudoers.d/test
Once the user is created, connect to the device from your computer using SSH:
ssh [USERNAME]@alpon-[MAC_ADDRESS].local
Example — if your device's hostname is alpon-2ccf67319374 and your username is test:
ssh test@alpon-2ccf67319374.local
test (the user you created in Step 4)alpon-2ccf67319374.local (unique per device — find on label)22 (default SSH port).local suffix uses mDNS (Bonjour/Avahi). If hostname resolution fails, use the device's IP address instead: ssh test@<IP_ADDRESS>If needed, you can connect a display to the ALPON X5 AI via HDMI and log in using the created username and password.
Updated 7 days ago