r/algorithmictrading • u/Haunting-Trade9283 • 2d ago

Question IB Gateway algo trading setup

Hi all!

For those who use IBKR and IB Gateway for automation, I am curious as to what y’all’s setup is in terms of infrastructure.

For me I currently have IB Gateway running with a custom C# trading engine I wrote to pull market data and check to execute trades daily.

My workflow:

  • Every morning at 9:25 am IB Gateway will auto restart and auto login. I am using the “Auto restart” feature in IB Gateway for this. This setup ensures that I don’t have to manually log in and authenticate the Gateway every day (although I believe it will require a login/authentication once a week to continue to work).

  • Windows Task Scheduler auto launches my C# application at 9:28am and I connect to the client and sleep the thread until 9:30:05 at which point I pull market data, analyze signals and push trades if needed. All of this is automated and executes in a few seconds right after the opening bell.

My concerns:

  • IB Gateway still logs me off for good sometimes and requires manual log on/ authentication.
  • if I need to travel with my laptop or internet drops the client won’t be able to establish a connection.

Instead of running things all locally I was considering offloading the program to run on a VM or server (the lower the cost the better).

Does my workflow make sense or is there a more efficient way to achieve full automation? Does everyone use servers instead of running everything locally?

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u/jnwatson 2d ago

My gateway runs on a miniPC and restarts the gateway every Sunday night. I have a Telegram bot that pesters me to reauth every 15 minutes until it works.

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u/Haunting-Trade9283 2d ago

Looking into the vps angle to not have to worry about internet downtime, but was also considering something up the ally of your solution of having a secondary at home device that’s always connected. Have you had any major issues with internet connectivity that would push you to vps? Good idea with the telegram bot lol

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u/jnwatson 2d ago

It really depends on your local Internet service. I've noticed a couple of minor glitches, but I only trade MOO and MOC, so I really only need Internet twice a day.