Hosting Your Gateway on a VPS

I know the feeling of setting up a perfect environment on a local machine, only to realize I can’t reach it once I leave my desk. It is frustrating to keep a laptop running just to maintain a workspace or keep a process alive.

Moving your setup to a VPS means your state and workspace live in the cloud. You can connect from any device without worrying about your home internet connection or power supply.

What You’ll Need

You need a provider to host your Gateway. Based on the documentation, I recommend these options:

• Railway or Northflank: Best for one-click and browser-based setups.
• Oracle Cloud: Offers an “Always Free” ARM tier, though signing up can be difficult.
• Hetzner (Docker) or Fly.io: Good choices for container-based deployments.
• AWS: Works well for EC2 or Lightsail. There is a video guide available.
• GCP or exe.dev: Use Compute Engine or a VM with an HTTPS proxy.

Quick Start

I suggest following these steps to get your cloud environment running in about five minutes:

1. Pick your provider: Choose a host from the list above. If you want a free option, try Oracle Cloud or the AWS free tier.
2. Deploy the Gateway: Run the Gateway on your VPS. It acts as the source of truth for your state and workspace.
3. Back up your data: Since the VPS owns your state, make sure you back up the state and workspace files regularly.
4. Secure the access: Keep the Gateway on loopback and use an SSH tunnel or Tailscale Serve. If you bind to a local network or tailnet, you must require gateway.auth.token or gateway.auth.password.

Once the Gateway is in the cloud, you can still use your local hardware. You can pair nodes on your Mac, iOS, Android, or headless devices. This lets the cloud Gateway handle the logic while your local devices provide the camera, screen, and system.run capabilities.

Troubleshooting

• Oracle Cloud Capacity: The “Always Free” tier is a great deal, but capacity and signup can be finicky depending on your region.
• Connection Security: If you cannot access the Gateway, ensure you are using an SSH tunnel or that your gateway.auth credentials are set correctly when not using loopback.

If you run into other specific setup issues, check the AI Setup Assistant.

What’s Next

• Gateway remote access
• Platform guides
• Understanding Nodes
• Nodes CLI reference