Two mitigations for local multi-instance contention over the shared relay
identity:
- A standby instance now waits a 2-minute grace period after the host claim
frees before taking over, so a cleanly restarting host (app update or
relaunch) — which reclaims at boot with no wait — always wins the restart
window instead of stranding paired devices on another process.
- Dev instances never host the relay passively: dev scripts set
OPENCHAMBER_RELAY_HOST=off and the Electron dev shell is detected via
OPENCHAMBER_ELECTRON_DEV. Explicit enable/pairing on such an instance still
force-claims; OPENCHAMBER_RELAY_HOST=on overrides.
All local instances share the data dir and therefore the relay identity
(serverId), so concurrent relay hosts evicted each other at the relay worker
(4001: Control replaced) and paired devices landed on whichever local process
won last — often a stale dev server, surfacing as 'Unable to reach server'
and devices stuck on relay with 503s on newer endpoints.
- relay/host-lock.js: per-machine claim file (relay-host.lock, {pid}); stale
claims from dead pids are ignored; unwritable data dir falls back to
pre-lock behavior
- relay/service.js: start only when the claim is free or ours, otherwise
'standby' with the holder pid in lastError; 30s watcher takes over when the
claimant dies and stands down when another process claims; pairing-link
creation and explicit /relay/enable force-claim (user intent wins)
- mobileConnections.ts: log candidate-refresh skip reasons and the refresh
result instead of failing silently
Candidates refresh (server + mobile + desktop clients):
- GET /api/client-auth/connection/candidates returns the server's current
LAN URLs, relay candidate, and serverId for already-paired devices
- /health and /api/version expose serverId so clients can verify a learned
address belongs to the expected server before sending their bearer token
- mobile: refresh saved candidates over the live transport after every
connect/wake, hot-switch relay->LAN when a fresh address is reachable;
serverId gate on direct probes; token no longer sent to /health
- desktop: refresh stored host apiUrl after a relay connect and hot-switch
back to direct; electron probe verifies serverId before authenticated fetch
Fixes found while debugging a dead pairing:
- settings: strict reader that throws on corrupt/unreadable file instead of
returning {}; relay signing/encryption key generation is now gated on it,
so a swallowed read failure can no longer mint a new server identity and
orphan every paired device (loud log when a keypair IS generated)
- SessionAuthGate: bounded auto-retry for transient session-check failures
(initial request racing the relay tunnel's first WS attempt, startup 5xx)
Reworks how devices connect to an OpenChamber server, end to end.
Pairing v2:
- One-time pairing links/QR codes (openchamber://connect?v=2) carrying a set of transport candidates (LAN/tunnel/relay) and a single-use secret redeemed server-side; no tokens embedded in links
- Add-a-device dialog written for first-time users: intent-based transport choice (Anywhere / Home network only / This computer only) with plain-language descriptions, transparent fallback checkboxes, server-authoritative LAN detection, high-res QR dialog
- Private relay folded into pairing as a transport candidate with a demand-driven lifecycle (enables when a relay device is paired, disables when none remain)
Multi-transport devices:
- A saved device holds all its transports and one token; mobile re-probes on connect, resume, and network change and hot-switches LAN<->relay seamlessly (no re-pairing, no remount, session preserved)
- Desktop can import relay pairing links, switch to relay hosts through the E2EE tunnel, and restore a relay default host after relaunch
Device management:
- Device list (web + desktop) shows live per-device connectivity with the active transport (Connected - Local network / Relay) and platform badges (iOS/Android/macOS/Windows/Linux)
- One physical device = one record: stable per-install dedupe keys across pairing and password re-login; typed pairing label names the device, paired devices name the connection by the issuing server hostname
- Trusted desktop-local client manages all devices (list, revoke, clear revoked); relay host reaps dead client sockets after 3 missed keepalives
Android:
- LAN transport unblocked (cleartext + mixed content, mirroring iOS ATS exceptions); resume re-probe retries through network flux and silently auto-reconnects from a disconnected state
Adds OpenChamber Relay — an opt-in way to reach an instance from a phone,
browser, or another desktop from anywhere, with no open inbound ports, no
tunnel, and no shared LAN. The instance dials outbound to a relay; all app
traffic (HTTP, the event stream, terminal, dictation) is multiplexed and
encrypted through a single connection per client, so the relay only ever
forwards opaque ciphertext.
Transport
- End-to-end-encrypted channel over WebCrypto (ECDH P-256 -> HKDF ->
AES-256-GCM) with a capability-negotiated handshake and a small
HTTP/SSE/WebSocket multiplexing protocol. A byte-compatible JS host mirror
is cross-checked by tests.
- Host: outbound connection manager, per-client tunnel dispatcher to the local
server over loopback, reuse of the existing instance identity key, and
management routes. Disabled by default; explicit opt-in.
- Client: plugs into the existing runtime layer (runtime-fetch/-url/-switch/
-auth, event pipeline, terminal, dictation) so features work over the relay
unchanged; direct-URL and Electron realtime-proxy paths are untouched.
Pairing & UX
- Relay section in Settings -> Remote Instances (live status, QR/link pairing,
revocation via the existing client-token list) and the mobile connect flow.
- Frame batching and idle-gated keepalive keep tunnel message volume low
without affecting streaming smoothness.
Security
- The tunnel is transport only; the server authenticates every tunneled
request exactly as for a direct remote client.
fragments only. The relay stores no keys, tokens, or payloads.
Operability
- The endpoint can be pinned to a self-hosted rel
paired clients inherit it from the offer automatically.
- Relay module DOCUMENTATION.md and a relay-trans
invariants that future WebSocket/streaming changes must follow.
The relay transport is complete and tested; the UI for enabling and pairing
is gated behind openchamber_relay_gate and stays
Bohdan Triapitsyn