Files
LLeMbas/deploy/README.md
T
Jaroslav Beneš 47791a88c7 A terminal panel beside an agent chat
A real shell on the chat's own connection, opened and closed like the
inspector and never beside it. The modes govern the model; what a person
types is theirs, since they hold the credential and could open the same
shell with an ssh client. The model cannot see the panel -- a button
copies the output you choose into the composer.

The session outlives the socket: closing the panel leaves a build
running, and coming back reattaches with the scrollback. Two tabs share
one shell and the smaller window decides the size. It ends on an idle
timeout, on deleting the chat, on disabling, moving or deleting the
connection, and on a restart -- which says why rather than quietly
opening a fresh shell that has lost the working directory.

The nginx template's `Connection ""` is right for SSE and fails every
WebSocket handshake, so `location /` now uses a `map $http_upgrade`;
update.sh grows a drift check for it, because the only symptom on a
stale vhost is a panel that cannot connect.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 01:44:07 +02:00

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6.0 KiB
Markdown

# Deployment
Installs LLeMbas as a **system** service behind nginx with a self-signed
certificate. Written for a systemd + nginx host; tested on Arch.
| | Default |
|---|---|
| Service user | `lembas` (system account, `nologin`) |
| Home | `/home/lembas` |
| Install prefix | `/srv/lembas` (bind mount of the home) |
| Checkout | `$PREFIX/app` |
| Virtualenv | `$PREFIX/venv` |
| Database | `$PREFIX/data/lembas.db` |
| Environment | `$PREFIX/lembas.env` (mode 600) |
| Unit | `/etc/systemd/system/lembas.service` |
| Vhost | `/etc/nginx/conf.d/<host>.conf` |
| Listens on | `127.0.0.1:8080` — reachable only through nginx |
The prefix defaults to a bind mount of the service user's home because on many
machines the root filesystem is small while `/home` is not, and the virtualenv
plus database belong on the larger volume. Set `PREFIX=$HOME_DIR` to skip it.
## First install
```bash
SITE_HOST=chat.example ./deploy/install.sh
```
Idempotent — safe to re-run. It creates the user and bind mount, clones the
repo, builds the venv, generates `lembas.env` with a fresh `LEMBAS_SECRET_KEY`,
installs the unit and vhost, issues a self-signed certificate, adds a
`/etc/hosts` entry if the name does not already resolve, and enables the
service.
Then open `https://<SITE_HOST>`, accept the certificate warning, and create the
first account — it becomes the administrator.
Everything is overridable from the environment:
| Variable | Default | |
|---|---|---|
| `SITE_HOST` | `lembas.local` | nginx `server_name` and certificate CN |
| `APP_PORT` | `8080` | loopback port the service binds |
| `SERVICE_USER` | `lembas` | system account to run as |
| `HOME_DIR` | `/home/lembas` | that account's home |
| `PREFIX` | `/srv/lembas` | install root (bind mount of `HOME_DIR`) |
| `REPO_URL` | this checkout's `origin` | so a fork deploys itself |
| `LEMBAS_BRANCH` | `main` | branch to deploy |
## Deploying a change
```bash
git push
./deploy/update.sh
```
`update.sh` fetches, hard-resets the deployment checkout to `origin/main`,
reinstalls dependencies and restarts, printing the commits it pulled. The hard
reset is deliberate: nothing is ever edited in place there, so there is no local
work to preserve and no conflicts to resolve.
## Operating it
```bash
systemctl status lembas
journalctl -u lembas -f
sudo -u lembas /srv/lembas/venv/bin/lembas info # paths and counts
```
Configuration lives in `$PREFIX/lembas.env`. Edit it and restart.
## Notes
**The secret key is generated once.** `install.sh` will not overwrite an
existing `lembas.env`. Rotating `LEMBAS_SECRET_KEY` signs every user out *and*
makes stored upstream API keys unreadable — they would have to be re-entered.
**nginx buffering is off for a reason.** Replies stream as server-sent events.
With `proxy_buffering on` (the default) nginx holds the entire reply and
delivers it in one lump at the end, which is indistinguishable from streaming
being broken. `proxy_read_timeout` is raised to an hour because a model can
think for minutes before the first token.
**The vhost passes WebSocket upgrades through, and must.** The terminal panel
is the one WebSocket in LLeMbas. A `location` that sets `Connection ""` — which
is what SSE alone needs, and what this template used to say — fails every
handshake, and a failed handshake tells the browser nothing: no status, no
reason. The `map $http_upgrade` at the top of the vhost yields the empty string
when the client did not ask to upgrade, so streaming is unaffected. `update.sh`
warns when the installed vhost has drifted from the template, because this is
the failure most likely to be diagnosed as a bug in the application.
**Every restart kills every open shell.** A reply being written is persisted
with whatever it has; a terminal has nothing to persist, so a command still
running on the far side is cut off. `update.sh` restarts unconditionally, so a
deploy in the middle of somebody's `apt-get dist-upgrade` ends it. The panel is
told why rather than silently reconnecting to a new shell, which would have
lost the working directory and the half-typed command.
**A terminal is not in the transcript, and is not logged.** The open and the
close are logged with the user, the chat and the connection; what was typed is
not recorded anywhere. That follows from the design — the chat's mode governs
the model, not the person at the keyboard — but everything else an agent chat
does *is* in the transcript, so it is a difference in kind and worth knowing
before somebody goes looking for the history.
**Nothing an agent does runs on this machine.** Agent chats execute their
commands over SSH, on a host somebody added and prepared — a container, a VM,
another machine. That is the whole isolation story, and it is why the unit can
stay locked down instead of being opened up to make room for a sandbox.
`ProtectSystem=full` rather than `strict` only because the data directory must
be writable and `strict` would mean listing every path.
The practical consequence for whoever runs this: **the security of an agent
chat is the security of the host behind its SSH profile.** A throwaway
container with the one project mounted into it is a very different thing from a
key to a production server, and LLeMbas cannot tell them apart.
**Use a real certificate if this is exposed beyond a trusted LAN.** The
self-signed cert exists so the install works with no external dependencies;
point `ssl_certificate` at a real one and nothing else needs to change.
The session cookie is deliberately not marked `secure`, so that a LAN install
over plain http can sign anybody in at all. That has always meant a network
attacker on http could steal a session; with the terminal it also means they
could open an interactive shell on the machine behind that chat. If the
terminal is switched on, run this over TLS.
**One worker only.** True of generations already — the registry is in-process —
and sharper here: with two workers a browser reconnecting to its terminal could
land in the process that has no shell for it, and silently open a second one on
the same machine.