Self-hosting

Admin and invites

The relay has a small admin surface, separate from the public one desktops and devices talk to.

The admin API

The admin API listens on 127.0.0.1:8081 — local only, never exposed to the network the relay itself is reachable from. Reach it from the same machine, or over SSH port forwarding, or from a sidecar in the same pod; don't put it behind a public reverse proxy.

It's authenticated with a token the relay writes to admin.json in the data directory (-data) the first time it starts. Keep that file as tightly held as you would a root credential — anyone with it has full admin access.

Inviting a desktop

If -registration is set to invite (see Configuration), a new desktop can't register itself; an admin has to issue an invite code first:

flockdeck-relay invite -data /data -note "jane's laptop"

The -note is just for your own records in the stats output below — it isn't shown to the desktop that redeems the code.

Usage stats

flockdeck-relay stats -data /data

prints a summary of what's registered: how many desktops, how many paired devices, and how close the deployment is to the limits set by -max-hosts and -max-devices.

Revoking access

There's no separate admin command for this yet — turning off remote access from a desktop's own Settings, or running flockdeck remote disable there, removes it from the relay it was registered with.