Headless setup

A home server, a headless box you reach only by SSH, a GPU cloud VM you rent by the hour: the daemon and CLI run happily with no desktop app and no display. Everything works from the shell, and the machine becomes a host for every device you carry.

Install

# Linux and macOS
curl -fsSL https://olace.app/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://olace.app/install.ps1 | iex

This installs the daemon and the olace command. No GUI, no runtime requirements beyond your local AI runtime of choice.

Set up

olace setup            # install a runtime, consent-gated
olace pull qwen3.5:14b   # get a model
olace signin           # one-time code by email or phone

olace signin offers to install the background service so the machine stays reachable across reboots. Say yes.

Every runtime Olace sets up runs without a GUI, so nothing here needs a display: Ollama, llama.cpp, and llmster, which is LM Studio's headless daemon and not the desktop app. Pick one explicitly with olace setup --provider ollama|lms|llamacpp.

Make it a host

Pair your other devices to this machine so they can use its models from anywhere:

olace pair --code

Scan the QR from your phone, or type the code into another computer (olace pair claim <CODE> works too). That is the whole network setup: the machine only makes outbound connections, so there is nothing to open in your firewall or router.

Serve other apps

olace bridge on --require-key

Now any OpenAI-compatible tool on this machine can use its models, and every paired host's models, through 127.0.0.1:5578/v1. See Olace Bridge.

Keep an eye on it

olace status           # everything at a glance
olace logs -f          # follow the daemon log
olace update --check   # stay current

And from your other machines, the same commands work remotely: olace status --device server, olace logs --device server, olace pull <tag> --device server.