Remote Access

Drive Locally Uncensored from your phone — over your home Wi-Fi or from anywhere via Cloudflare Tunnel. Your desktop does the compute.

What remote access does

Remote access turns your phone into a thin client for the LU instance running on your desktop. Every chat, Coding Agent run, image generation, and tool call still executes on the desktop — the phone just sends prompts and receives results.

Two modes, both opt-in:

LAN — phone and desktop share the same Wi-Fi. Traffic never leaves your home network.
Internet (Cloudflare Tunnel) — reach your desktop from anywhere through a Cloudflare-fronted HTTPS URL. Cloudflare relays the traffic; your desktop is never directly exposed.

Local-first stays local-first

The LU brand promise is unchanged: every inference happens on your desktop. Remote access is purely a UI bridge.

1. LAN mode (same Wi-Fi)

1Open the Remote panel.

In the desktop app, click the radio icon in the bottom-left sidebar. The Remote Access panel opens.

2Click Start LAN.

The desktop binds an HTTPS server to your machine's LAN IP (something like 192.168.1.42:8788). The panel shows the URL and a QR code.

3Open the URL on your phone.

Scan the QR code or type the URL into your phone's browser. The phone shows the LU web app login screen.

4Enter the passcode.

The desktop panel displays a six-digit passcode. Type it on your phone. The phone is now paired — chat, Coding Agent, tools, plugins all work as on the desktop.

No port forwarding needed

LAN mode works without router configuration. If your phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as your desktop, the connection just works.

2. Internet mode (Cloudflare Tunnel)

For accessing your desktop from coffee shops, hotels, or anywhere off-network. Cloudflare's cloudflared binary creates an outbound TLS tunnel; your desktop never opens a port to the public internet.

1Install cloudflared (one-time).

Cloudflare's free tier is enough for personal use. Follow the official installer for your platform:

Windows: cloudflared installer
macOS: brew install cloudflared
Linux: package from your distro or the Cloudflare apt/yum repos

2Click Start Tunnel in the Remote panel.

LU launches cloudflared tunnel --url localhost:8788 in the background. After a few seconds you get a trycloudflare.com URL plus a fresh QR code.

3Open the tunnel URL on your phone — from anywhere.

Same passcode flow as LAN mode. Once paired, the phone keeps working until you either stop the tunnel or restart the desktop.

Free tier limits

The free trycloudflare URL changes every restart. For a stable URL, use a Cloudflare account-bound tunnel — configure cloudflared tunnel login first; LU picks it up automatically on the next Start Tunnel.

3. The six-digit passcode

LU generates a random six-digit passcode on every server start. It's the gate between "anyone with the URL" and "this phone, paired with my desktop right now".

Shown in the Remote panel next to the QR code.
Each connected device exchanges the passcode for a per-device token.
Stop the server → new passcode on next start. Old tokens stop working.
Regenerate the passcode any time via the Regenerate button — revokes all paired devices.

4. QR code pairing

The QR code encodes https://<url>/#passcode=<6-digit>. Scanning it on your phone opens the web app already authenticated — no typing.

QR is the same secret as the passcode

Treat the QR code as a one-time token. Don't share a screenshot in a public chat. If you do leak it, just hit Regenerate.

5. Permissions per device

Once a phone has paired, the Remote panel lists it as a connected device. You can:

Toggle chat / Coding Agent / tool access per device — e.g. let your kid use chat from their tablet but block shell_execute.
Rename the device so the list stays readable.
Disconnect — revokes the token immediately.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause / fix
QR shows but phone can't open the URL	Phone is on a different Wi-Fi (e.g. 5 GHz vs 2.4 GHz). Switch the phone to the same SSID as the desktop, or use Internet mode.
Browser warns "Not secure"	LAN mode uses a self-signed cert by default. Tap "Advanced → Proceed". For trusted HTTPS, use Internet mode (Cloudflare's cert is real).
Tunnel button greyed out	`cloudflared` not on PATH. Install it (see step 1 of Internet mode) and click `Refresh`.
Passcode rejected	Passcode regenerated after the QR was scanned. Open the panel, scan the fresh QR.
Phone disconnects after a few minutes	Desktop went to sleep. Disable system sleep, or pair again on wake.

Privacy notes

Compute stays local. Models, prompts, and tool calls execute on your desktop. The phone just renders the UI and ships keystrokes.
Cloudflare sees encrypted bytes only. The tunnel is TLS-terminated at your desktop — Cloudflare relays the encrypted stream but cannot read it.
No telemetry. LU does not phone home, and the Remote module is no exception.
You're in control. Stop the server any time — everything pairs again next session.