Tutorial: Set Up a Team Network

This tutorial shows you how to create a private network for your team — so everyone can reach internal tools, databases, and services without exposing them to the internet.

Time: 20 minutes Difficulty: beginner–intermediate

The scenario

Your team has:

A staging server in the cloud
A database server
A few developers who need access

You want developers to connect their laptops and access these resources directly, without the servers being publicly accessible.

Steps

Deploy the control plane on a server

Pick one of your servers (or a separate VPS) to run the control plane. Follow the control plane installation guide.

Note: this server only runs Rabtly’s management software — your other servers can still do their normal jobs.

Connect your infrastructure

On each server (staging, database, etc.), install and start the daemon:


# On the staging server
sudo rabtly-daemon \
  --server http://your-control-plane:8080 \
  --name staging
 
# On the database server
sudo rabtly-daemon \
  --server http://your-control-plane:8080 \
  --name database

Set both up as systemd services for reliability.

Invite your team members

In the dashboard → Organisation → Members, send invite links to each developer. They’ll create accounts and join your workspace.

Each developer connects their laptop

After accepting the invite, each developer runs:


sudo rabtly-daemon \
  --server http://your-control-plane:8080 \
  --name alice-macbook

Everyone can now reach the servers

From any developer’s laptop:


# Connect to the staging server
ssh deploy@100.64.0.2
 
# Connect to the database (via its Rabtly IP)
psql -h 100.64.0.3 -U myapp mydb

The database server never needs to be exposed on a public port. Only Rabtly-connected devices can reach it.

Controlling access (optional)

By default, all nodes in a network can reach each other. If you want finer control — for example, only letting certain people access the database — use Access Control.

Go to the dashboard → Access Control → Visual Editor. You can draw rules like:

“Developers can reach staging on any port”
“Only the app server can reach the database on port 5432”
“Block everything else”

See the Access Control tutorial for a full walkthrough.

Use networks to isolate different environments. For example, have a production network and a staging network — nodes in production can’t see nodes in staging at all.

Onboarding new team members

When someone joins:

Send them an invite link from the dashboard
They accept and create an account
They install the daemon on their laptop and connect
They’re on the network immediately — no IT helpdesk needed