RUN IT WELL
Let a browser use your own internet connection
Some sites judge where a browser connects from before anyone touches the page. From a datacenter, Cloudflare can show a check you cannot pass in the viewer, and a signed-in ChatGPT can stop with "The browser check couldn't finish", which has nothing to click. A gateway lets a browser reach the web from a computer of yours instead. This requires Tallylamp 0.12.0 or newer.
Set up a gateway
Add the gateway
In the dashboard, open Gateways and choose Add gateway. Name it after the computer it will run on.
Run its command on that computer
Copy the command it shows and run it in a terminal there. It needs Node 22 or newer. The token in it is shown once.
Choose it on a browser
Stop the browser, choose Choose… beside Gateway in its Settings, pick the gateway, then start the browser again.
curl -fsSLo tallylamp.mjs https://YOUR_HOST/tallylamp.mjs && \
TALLYLAMP_URL=https://YOUR_HOST TALLYLAMP_GATEWAY_TOKEN=tl_gw_… node tallylamp.mjs gatewayLeave it running. It dials out to your Tallylamp, so nothing listens on your computer, and it reconnects by itself after a dropped network, a sleep or a redeploy. On a Mac it keeps the computer from idling to sleep while it runs. Closing a laptop's lid still sleeps it. Ctrl-C stops it.
The Gateways page shows whether each gateway is connected, the computer it reported, the address it connected from, and which browsers use it.
What changes for the browser
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where sites see it | Your computer's internet connection, not the server's. |
| While the gateway is off | Its pages fail to load. It never falls back to the server's address, and its page and card say so. |
| HTTPS | Encrypted from Chrome to the site. The gateway passes on bytes it cannot read, though it sees which sites are visited and when. |
| Your home network | Refused. Tallylamp sends only public addresses, and the gateway also refuses your router, your other devices, and VPN and Tailscale ranges. |
| Ports | 80 and 443, unless you start it with --ports to allow more. |
| Speed | Pages load at your connection's upload speed. |
| Workers | Not supported. A browser on a gateway stays on the main instance. |
A browser has one route out: the server, a proxy, or a gateway. Choosing a gateway needs the proxy cleared first, and the other way round.
Who controls it
Only the administrator can add, assign or remove a gateway, because it carries a browser's traffic. Agents see whether a browser's gateway is connected, and are told to ask you to start it when it is not. A gateway that a browser uses cannot be removed until that browser is switched back to the server's connection.
Docs behind this guide
Based on Tallylamp's documented behaviour. See the source for API details and release-specific settings.