Installing on a VPS

Before you start

You need three things:

1. A Windows VPS. Windows Server 2019/2022 or Windows 10/11. Minimum 4 GB RAM and 2 vCPU; 8 GB is more comfortable with NinjaTrader open. Prefer a data centre in or near Chicago - CME's matching engine is in Aurora, Illinois. Do not pay a large premium for it: R2's books trade opening-range breakouts on five- and fifteen-minute bars and hold for up to two and a half hours, so a few milliseconds changes nothing. A stable connection to your broker matters far more than a fast one.
2. Your NinjaTrader login, and the connection details for every prop-firm account you want R2 to manage - not just the first one. See step 3.
3. Your R2 licence key (in the email with this guide).

1. Connect to the VPS

Your VPS provider emails you an IP address, a username and a password.

1. On your own PC press the Windows key and type Remote Desktop Connection. Open it.
2. Click Show Options, then the Local Resources tab, then More...
3. Tick Drives - specifically the drive holding your R2 installer. This lets you copy files across. Click OK.
4. Put the VPS's IP in Computer, your username in User name, and click Connect.
5. Enter the password. Accept the certificate warning - it is your own machine.

You are now looking at the VPS desktop. Everything below happens there, not on your PC.

1b. Before anything else: check the VPS can reach your broker

Do this first. It takes two minutes and can save you an hour.

Some brokers refuse logins from data-centre IP addresses, and a VPS is a data centre. It has nothing to do with your account or your password - the same details work at home and are refused from the VPS.

1. On the VPS, open the browser.
2. Go to your broker's own web platform and log in - for Tradovate that is trader.tradovate.com.
3. If it logs in, you are clear. Carry on.

There is a one-line version that settles it beyond doubt. In PowerShell on the VPS:

curl.exe -s -o NUL -w "%{http_code}" https://live.tradovateapi.com/v1/auth/me

404 means the request reached Tradovate and the address is fine. 403 means Tradovate refused it at the edge before it got there - the VPS's IP is blocked. Run the same command at home to compare: a residential connection returns 404.

If it refuses - "Unsuccessful login attempt", or NinjaTrader later says "There was an unknown error logging in" - stop and fix that first. Nothing you install will help, and a new NinjaTrader account will not help either: the address is being refused, not the account.

Do not keep retrying. Repeated failures can lock the account for a while, and the lock follows the account rather than the machine - you would then be locked out at home too.

Two calls, in this order:

1. Your VPS provider. This is their business and they can move you to an address the broker accepts. Give them specifics rather than "it doesn't work": the IP, and what the broker said. NinjaTrader records the real reason in Documents\NinjaTrader 8\trace\trace.<date>.txt - a line reading error verifying entitlements: Forbidden is the broker refusing the address, not a bad password.
2. Your prop firm. Some require a VPS address to be registered, and a few do not permit one at all. Worth knowing before you pay for a month.

2. Get the installer onto the VPS

The easy way: download it on the VPS itself.

1. On the VPS, open the browser and sign in to your email.
2. Open your welcome message and click the download link in it.
3. The installer lands in the VPS's own Downloads folder. Done.

Your browser may warn you first. Chrome says "This file isn't commonly downloaded and it may be dangerous" and offers Keep or Download suspicious file. That is Chrome's reputation check, not a virus scan: R2 is not signed with a paid code-signing certificate, so there is no reputation attached to it. Choose to keep the file.

If you want to be certain the file is the one we built, check it in PowerShell:

Get-FileHash .\R2-Setup-latest.exe

and compare the result with the SHA-256 shown on this page. A certificate proves who built something; the hash proves nothing altered it on the way to you.

That is usually quicker than copying it across, because the VPS has a fast connection and your own upload speed is not involved. R2 is not downloadable from the website - the link is only in your welcome email.

The other way: copy it from your own PC. Because you ticked Drives in step 1, your own disks appear inside the VPS.

1. On the VPS, open File Explorer.
2. Under This PC you will see something like C on YOUR-PC. Open it.
3. Find R2-Setup-1.1.4.exe on your own machine and copy it.
4. Paste it onto the VPS Desktop.

An 80 MB file takes a minute or two over RDP.

3. Install NinjaTrader 8 first

R2 drives NinjaTrader, so NinjaTrader must exist before R2 is set up.

1. In the VPS browser, go to ninjatrader.com and download NinjaTrader 8.
2. Install it. Accept the defaults.
3. Open it and log in. This matters: R2 checks for Documents\NinjaTrader 8\bin\Custom and refuses to install without it, and that folder only appears after NinjaTrader has run once.
4. Connect EVERY prop-firm account you want R2 to manage - all of them, now. If you trade with more than one firm, or hold several accounts at one firm, add every connection before you go any further, and check that each account appears in NinjaTrader's Control Center under the Accounts tab.
5. Check you can see live prices on a chart.
6. Now close NinjaTrader, and leave it closed while you install R2.

Why close it, when R2 is happy either way? Because it saves you a step.

R2 adds two add-on files and its books to NinjaTrader's own folders. If NinjaTrader is running, R2 will not touch those folders - replacing files underneath a running platform is what makes Windows close NinjaTrader and bring it back at a login screen. So it puts them to one side and copies them in later, the moment NinjaTrader closes.

That is the right behaviour when you already have a desk trading and cannot afford an interruption. On a fresh install nothing is trading yet, so there is nothing to protect: close NinjaTrader first and the files go straight in, ready to compile when you open it again.

Either way works. Closing it first is simply fewer steps.

Why all of them, and why now. R2 plans from the accounts NinjaTrader can see. An account that is not connected when you run the setup wizard is simply not there, so it gets no book and no sizing. R2 does notice it later and offers to plan it - but putting a book onto an account means attaching, and attaching means closing NinjaTrader and logging back in afterwards. Connect everything first and that happens once. Connect them a few at a time and you will be restarting NinjaTrader all afternoon.

You can add accounts later, and nothing breaks if you do. It is just slower.

How to add a connection

Do this once per firm. If one firm gave you several accounts on the same login, they all arrive on one connection - you do not need to repeat it for each account.

1. In NinjaTrader's Control Center, open the Connections menu and choose Configure.
2. Click Add.... A list of providers appears.
3. Pick the provider your firm uses, not the firm's name - the firm's name will usually not be in the list. Prop firms sit on top of one of a few platforms, and the one you need is named in your firm's welcome email: - Rithmic - most common. You will also have to pick a system or gateway from a second dropdown; the firm tells you which one, and picking the wrong one fails to connect even with correct details. - Tradovate - used by several firms. - Continuum - this is CQG. If your firm's email does not say, ask them. Guessing wastes an afternoon.
4. Fill in the username and password the firm gave you. These are usually not the same as your NinjaTrader login, and not the same as the login for the firm's own website.
5. Give the connection a name you will recognise in the Connection name box - for example BlueGuardian or FundedNext. With several firms you will be looking at this list often, and "Rithmic 1, Rithmic 2, Rithmic 3" helps nobody.
6. Tick "Connect on start up". This matters more on a VPS than anywhere else: without it, NinjaTrader starts after a reboot and just sits there disconnected, and nothing trades until somebody notices.
7. Save.
8. Repeat from step 2 for each additional firm.

Then connect: Connections menu, and click each connection by name. A connected one shows a green indicator in the bottom-right of the Control Center.

Check before you move on

Open the Accounts tab in the Control Center. Every account you expect should be listed, with a balance. If one is missing, its connection is not up, and R2 will not see it either.

Two settings worth getting right on a VPS

Ask for password on start up - if your provider offers it, turn it off. Left on, NinjaTrader waits for somebody to type a password after every reboot, which defeats the point of a machine that runs without you.

Connection loss handling - NinjaTrader can be told what to do when a feed drops. The default is usually fine, but know where it is: weekend maintenance disconnects are normal, and you will see "Unable to re-establish the connection" on a Saturday. That is expected, not a fault.

4. Install R2

1. Double-click R2-Setup-1.1.4.exe.
2. Windows shows a blue "Windows protected your PC" box saying "unrecognized app". There is no Run button on it yet - the first screen offers only Don't run. Click More info, which reveals the app name and Publisher: Unknown publisher, and then a Run anyway button appears. Click that.

This is not a virus warning. It means the installer is not signed with a paid code-signing certificate, so Windows has no reputation record for it. If you want to be certain you have the real file, check its SHA-256 against the one in your welcome email: open PowerShell on the VPS and run Get-FileHash .\R2-Setup-1.1.4.exe. 3. Accept the default location. It installs for your user only and needs no administrator rights. 4. Leave Start R2 ticked and click Finish.

If Windows instead says the file is blocked because it came from another computer, right-click the installer, choose Properties, tick Unblock at the bottom, and click OK. Then double-click it again.

If you left NinjaTrader open anyway, nothing is broken. R2 tells you so at the end of the install: its NinjaTrader files are waiting to one side, there is nothing to compile yet, and R2 copies them in the moment you close NinjaTrader. Open NinjaTrader again after that and it compiles them at startup.

NinjaTrader stays open throughout. If it is running, R2 puts its trading books to one side and copies them in automatically the next time NinjaTrader closes. You do not have to do anything, and you will never be logged out unexpectedly.

5. Enter your licence key

1. In R2, click SETTINGS (top right).
2. Paste the key from your email into the licence box.
3. Click SAVE.

The key binds to this machine the first time it is used. One key runs on one machine at a time - if you later move R2, release the key from the dashboard first.

R2 never stops working over a licence. An expired or missing key changes what R2 says, never whether your accounts trade. Software that downed tools over a licence check has no business managing funded accounts.

6. Run the setup wizard

It opens by itself on first run; otherwise press SETUP WIZARD on the Summary page.

On step 4, the target box wants the profit needed to pass, not the balance to reach. A firm advertising "trade to $53,000" on a $50,000 account means a $3,000 target. R2 warns you if it looks like you have typed a balance.

On step 9, NinjaTrader closes and restarts, and asks you to log in again. That is unavoidable - NinjaTrader has no auto sign-in - so do this step while you are at the keyboard.

7. Make R2 survive a reboot

A VPS reboots for Windows updates. Two things make R2 come back on its own:

R2's side is automatic. It installs a startup entry and a watchdog that restarts it if it ever stops.

Windows' side needs you, once. After a reboot Windows sits at a lock screen and nothing starts until someone logs in. To let it log in by itself:

1. Press the Windows key, type netplwiz, open it.
2. Untick Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer.
3. Click Apply and enter the password when asked.

R2 will not do this for you and does not want your password. Only turn it on if you accept that anyone with console access to the VPS is logged in as you.

NinjaTrader still needs a human. It has no auto sign-in. After a reboot, connect by RDP and log in to NinjaTrader; R2 puts the books back by itself once you have.

8. Alerts on your phone

Settings -> Telegram. R2 messages you when a trade opens or closes, when an account is near a limit, a morning check-in before the open, and a report at the close. Nothing is sent that you did not ask for.

9. Checks before you walk away

• Every managed account shows Realtime on the dashboard.
• The Summary page shows no alerts.
• The clock top-left is ticking.
• Telegram received a test message.
• Reboot the VPS once, on purpose, and confirm R2 comes back and you can log in to NinjaTrader. Better to learn that on a Sunday than on a Tuesday morning.

If something is wrong