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TutorialsConnect Two Devices

Tutorial: Connect Two Devices

In this tutorial you’ll connect your laptop and a second machine (server, desktop, or Raspberry Pi) so they can reach each other directly over a private encrypted connection.

Time: about 10 minutes Difficulty: beginner

What you’ll need

Steps

Start the control plane

Make sure your control plane is running and you can open the dashboard at http://your-server:3000.

Connect machine 1 (your laptop)

Open a terminal on your laptop:

sudo rabtly-daemon \
  --server http://your-server:8080 \
  --name laptop

Leave this running (or set it up as a service — see macOS or Linux).

Connect machine 2

Open a terminal on the second machine:

sudo rabtly-daemon \
  --server http://your-server:8080 \
  --name server-1

Check the dashboard

Go to the dashboard → Nodes. Both devices should appear with a green Online badge and private IP addresses like 100.64.0.1 and 100.64.0.2.

Ping across the tunnel

On your laptop, ping the second machine using its Rabtly IP:

ping 100.64.0.2

You should see replies. The traffic is going through the encrypted WireGuard tunnel — not over the public internet.

Try SSH (optional)

If the second machine has SSH enabled, you can now connect to it using the Rabtly IP:

ssh user@100.64.0.2

This works even if the machine is behind a NAT or firewall, because Rabtly handles the connection automatically.

Rabtly IPs always start with 100.64.. You can find each device’s IP in the dashboard Nodes page.

What’s happening behind the scenes?

  • Each daemon registered with the control plane and received a unique IP address.
  • The control plane sent each daemon the WireGuard public key of its peers.
  • The daemons established a direct encrypted tunnel using WireGuard.
  • If direct connection fails (strict firewall), traffic automatically routes through the relay server.

Next steps

Remote access to your home →Set up a team network →
All TutorialsRemote Access to Your Home