diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index aa8f69e..64b00ce 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -7,3 +7,123 @@ This repository contains code which implements the Gravwell Cloud Archive server
 * `usertool` is a utility for managing a password database as used by the Cloud Archive server.
 * `configtool` is a small utility which attempts to generate a `gravwell.conf` for a set of archived shards.
 * `pkg` contains packages used by the Cloud Archive system.
+
+## Running a Cloud Archive server
+
+Until the Cloud Archive server is packaged officially, you can set it up manually. Make sure you have [Go](https://golang.org) installed, to build the programs.
+
+Before running the server, you'll need to set up the password database and the config file. For simplicity, we'll assume all cloud archive information will be kept in `/opt/cloudarchive`.
+
+### Initializing the Password Database
+
+Use the `usertool` command to set up the password database with an entry for your customer number:
+
+```
+cd usertool
+go build
+./usertool -action useradd -id <customer number> -passfile /opt/cloudarchive/cloud.passwd
+```
+
+The tool will prompt for the passphrase to use for the specified customer number.
+
+Note: You can find your customer number on the License page of the Gravwell UI.
+
+### Configuration
+
+The following config file will make the server archive incoming data to `/opt/cloudarchive/storage`. It listens for clients on port 8886, using the specified TLS cert/key pair for encryption. The `Password-File` parameter points at the password database set up earlier.
+
+```
+[Global]
+Listen-Address="0.0.0.0:8886"
+Cert-File=/opt/cloudarchive/cert.pem
+Key-File=/opt/cloudarchive/key.pem
+Password-File=/opt/cloudarchive/cloud.passwd
+Log-Level=INFO
+Backend-Type=file
+Storage-Directory=/opt/cloudarchive/storage
+```
+
+The following config archives incoming data shards to an FTP server instead of the local disk. Note the specification of the FTP-Server; the FTP-Username and FTP-Password fields should be for a valid account on that FTP server.
+
+```
+[Global]
+Listen-Address="0.0.0.0:8886"
+Cert-File=/opt/cloudarchive/cert.pem
+Key-File=/opt/cloudarchive/key.pem
+Password-File=/opt/cloudarchive/cloud.passwd
+Log-Level=INFO
+Backend-Type=ftp
+Storage-Directory=/opt/cloudarchive/storage
+FTP-Server=ftp.example.org:21
+FTP-Username=cloudarchiveuser
+FTP-Password=ca_secret_password
+```
+
+### Build and install the binary
+
+Install the server binary into `/opt/cloudarchive`:
+
+```
+cd server
+go build
+cp server /opt/cloudarchive
+```
+
+### Create user / set ownership
+
+For security reasons, we'll create a system user to run the Cloud Archive service and give it ownership of `/opt/cloudarchive`:
+
+```
+adduser -S -h /opt/cloudarchive -H -D -g "Cloud Archive Daemon User" -G cloudarchive cloudarchive
+chown -R cloudarchive:cloudarchive /opt/cloudarchive
+```
+
+### Run the server
+
+Now that everything is set up, we create a service file in `/etc/systemd/system/cloudarchive.service`:
+
+
+```
+[Unit]
+Description=Gravwell Cloud Archive Service
+After=network-online.target
+
+[Service]
+Type=simple
+ExecStart=/opt/cloudarchive/server -config-file /opt/cloudarchive/server.conf
+WorkingDirectory=/opt/cloudarchive
+Restart=always
+User=cloudarchive
+Group=cloudarchive
+StandardOutput=journal
+StandardError=journal
+LimitNPROC=infinity
+LimitNOFILE=infinity
+PIDFile=/var/run/gravwell_cloudarchive.pid
+TimeoutStopSec=5
+KillMode=process
+KillSignal=SIGINT
+```
+
+Then we enable & run it:
+
+```
+systemctl enable cloudarchive.service
+systemctl start cloudarchive.service
+```
+
+### Configure Gravwell
+
+To make Gravwell send archived shards to the Cloud Archive server, add a `Cloud-Archive` stanza to `gravwell.conf`:
+
+```
+[Cloud-Archive]
+	Archive-Server=cloudarchive.example.org
+	Archive-Shared-Secret="mypassword"
+```
+
+(The `Archive-Shared-Secret` field should match the password you set for your customer number in the password database)
+
+Shards will not be archived unless the well has the `Archive-Deleted-Shards=true` and `Delete-Frozen-Data=true` parameters set.
+
+Refer to the [documentation for Cloud Archive](https://docs.gravwell.io/configuration/archive.html) for more information.
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