You’ve set up and optimized SillyTavern for AI roleplay on your desktop, and now you want to use it on other devices like your phone or laptop.
The easiest way to do that is to access SillyTavern over your local network. Your desktop will run SillyTavern and communicate with the backend using all the presets and settings you have configured. And you can use your mobile or laptop to roleplay with your characters from anywhere within your local network.
What Is The Local Network?
A local area network (LAN) is a group of devices such as computers and printers, as well as shared resources like software and file storage, all within a limited area like your home or a university campus.
The data and all communication between your devices stay within your local network and usually don’t go over the internet. By default, no one outside your local network can access any device or resources within it.
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You can run SillyTavern on your desktop and access it from any device over the local network to roleplay with your characters. You enjoy the privacy benefits of using a local frontend for AI roleplay and the convenience of using it on your phone while relaxing on the couch.
Access SillyTavern Over Your Local Network
You’ll need to edit the config.yaml file located in your SillyTavern installation at /SillyTavern/config.yaml to enable sharing over the local network.
Allowing Remote Connections
By default, SillyTavern only accepts connections from the device you’re running it on (the host machine). To access SillyTavern over your local network, you need to allow connections from other devices.
Set the listen option to true. This allows SillyTavern to accept connections from other devices on the local network.
Access Control
You need to set up an access control method to let other devices on your local network connect to SillyTavern. The simplest way is to enable whitelist-based access control by setting whitelistMode to true.
Your whitelist must always include ::1 and 127.0.0.1 for your host machine to connect to SillyTavern. You can then add additional IP addresses that are allowed to connect to SillyTavern, enabling you to permit specific devices or your entire local network.
Devices on our local network are assigned dynamic IP addresses. That’s why we’ve added 192.168.0.0/16 to our whitelist, configuring the access control to allow our entire local network’s address range to access SillyTavern.
The SillyTavern documentation suggests using this whitelist configuration if you’re unsure about your local network’s address range.
whitelist:
- ::1
- 127.0.0.1
- 10.0.0.0/8
- 172.16.0.0/12
- 192.168.0.0/16Basic Authentication Mode
Suppose your local area network is shared by multiple people (siblings, parents, roommates, etc.). In that case, they will also be able to access SillyTavern using their device if you whitelist your local network’s address range.
You can set basicAuthMode to true and specify a username and password. Now, any device trying to access SillyTavern will need to enter these credentials. Configuring basic authentication as an extra layer of access control ensures that only you can access SillyTavern over your local network.
Encrypt Traffic With TLS/SSL
The local network communication between your device and SillyTavern’s host machine isn’t accessible to anyone outside your network. However, users and devices within your network can still access and monitor your traffic since it isn’t encrypted.
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For example, if you share your local network with roommates or friends, they may monitor your network usage. Or if you’re on a university campus, the network administrators can monitor all local traffic.
You can encrypt traffic to and from your SillyTavern’s host machine using TLS/SSL. This is the technology that websites on the internet use to secure traffic between you and them, and browsers show this as https://.
Generate Self-Signed Certificates Using SillyTavern Launcher
You can generate self-signed certificates using SillyTavern Launcher by navigating to Home > Toolbox > Editor > Core Utilities and choosing option 2.
This process automatically generates a self-signed SSL certificate along with its private key. The launcher saves the certificate and key in the appropriate directory.
Enable SSL
You need to edit the config.yaml file in your SillyTavern installation at /SillyTavern/config.yaml and set ssl: enabled: to true.
The default certPath and keyPath should work in most cases. However, if your certificate and key are stored in a different directory, you’ll need to update the path values accordingly.
Generate Self-Signed Certificates
If you don’t use the SillyTavern Launcher, you can generate self-signed certificates with Let’s Encrypt’s Certbot. Update the certificate and key path values in SillyTavern’s [config.yaml] as needed.
Browser Security Risk Warning / Not Secure Warning
Since you’ve generated a self-signed certificate that isn’t signed or verified by a trusted authority, your browser will warn you that you’re visiting an insecure site.
You can safely ignore this warning since you control the device that generated the self-signed certificate. All your data to and from SillyTavern’s host device will still be encrypted and protected from anyone monitoring the local network traffic.
Connect To SillyTavern Over Your Local Network
You’ll need to find the IP address of the host machine (the device running SillyTavern). The method to find the IP address depends on your operating system. After identifying the device’s IP, add SillyTavern’s port number in front of it.
This is the address you’ll use on your mobile or laptop’s web browser to access SillyTavern over your local network. For example, our address is https://192.168.0.104:8000. If you haven’t enabled SSL, your address will start with http:// instead of https://.
Firewall Rules
If you see a blank screen and can’t access SillyTavern over your local network, you may need to set rules for the firewall on the host machine to allow local network traffic on port 8000. The process to set firewall rules will depend on your operating system.
Troubleshooting and Help
- The official documentation offers detailed instructions to access SillyTavern over your local network and assists with troubleshooting problems.
- You can ask for help on the SillyTavern subreddit and Discord Server.
