Where the chat runs

The default is Ollama on this PC at http://127.0.0.1:11434. Prompts stay here. Nothing is sent to a rental until you connect one.

Settings has a section named Where this chat runs. The connect button says the chat will be sent to that machine. While it is connected, a bar on the chat names the machine. Stay on this PC drops the tunnel. There is no warning on every message.

This is not the Connectivity page. That page is an allowlist for assistant tool calls.

What you paste

A direct SSH command:

ssh -p 17432 root@203.0.113.10 -i C:\keys\id_ed25519

The port in that command is sshd. It is never 11434. 11434 is Ollama on the rental’s loopback. Leave it there. Do not set OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0 and do not publish port 11434.

What the app opens

An OpenSSH local forward and nothing else. On this PC the forward listens on 127.0.0.1:11436. The chat stays here until Ollama’s /api/version answers on that port. An open TCP port is not enough. 11436 is not 11434, so a dead tunnel cannot be answered by Ollama on this PC.

There is no remote command. The prompt is not a shell argument. Agent forwarding is off. Each login keeps its own host-key file. A changed key fails closed. InControl does not edit your SSH config. The private key stays on this PC.

RunPod

Look up my RunPod pods reads RUNPOD_API_KEY from the environment and fills the direct command for a pod that is already running: root at the public IP, and the host port mapped to container port 22. The key is not stored. Lookup does not create, start, or stop a pod, and it does not send the chat. You still press Connect.

ssh.runpod.io is refused. That proxy is a shell and cannot forward a port. A pod that publishes 11434 is refused too.

The address dies when the rental restarts. Look the pod up again, or paste the new command.

Anyone else with sshd

Paste works for Vast and for any other sshd that allows a local forward to 127.0.0.1:11434. Vast’s sshNNN.vast.ai proxy is warned about. The documented forward is the direct public-IP SSH.

The rules in the repository file docs/COMPUTE.md are the longer version of this page.