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2-Minute Quick Start: Run a Remote Sandbox App Locally

This guide starts where the previous quick start ended.

Now you can already ping home-pc from my-laptop by alias:

fungi ping home-pc
Target peer: home-pc(16Uiu2H........ZC3bdZ)
Ping stream peer=16Uiu2H........ZC3bdZ interval=2000ms (Ctrl+C to stop)
TICK   CONN   DIR      RLY   RTT        ADDR/MSG
0      -      -        -     -          connecting
1      6      outbound no    5ms        /ip4/192.168.x.x/tcp/45189/p2p/16Uiu2H........ZC3bdZ
2      6      outbound no    6ms        /ip4/192.168.x.x/tcp/45189/p2p/16Uiu2H........ZC3bdZ

This means:

  • my-laptop and home-pc already have an encrypted connection.
  • home-pc already allows inbound control from my-laptop
  • home-pc is already saved in my-laptop's address book that allows you directly use the home-pc alias in later commands.

In this example, you will control home-pc from my-laptop, and the demo app is filebrowser-lite-wasi.

The goal is simple:

  • pull a sandboxed app to home-pc
  • start it remotely from my-laptop
  • open it locally in your browser on my-laptop

If you want the full model behind peer, service, catalog, and access, see Remote Service Control.

Download The Example Manifest​

Download the example manifest filebrowser-lite-wasi.service.yaml on my-laptop.

Or download it from the terminal:

curl -L -O https://fungi.rs/downloads/manifests/filebrowser-lite-wasi.service.yaml
  • filebrowser-lite is an experimental Fungi demo app based on a fork of filebrowser.
  • filebrowser is a popular open-source web app that provides a file explorer interface to a specified host directory.
  • The filebrowser-lite fork adds a minimal Rust backend and compiles the app into a WASI component.

Set The Current Peer Context​

Tell the CLI that the current remote target is home-pc:

fungi peer use home-pc

Show the current peer context to verify:

fungi peer current

After this, later remote commands can omit --peer home-pc.

Launch The Remote Sandbox App​

Run these three commands on my-laptop:

fungi peer admin service pull ./filebrowser-lite-wasi.service.yaml
fungi peer admin service start filebrowser-lite-wasi
fungi access open filebrowser-lite-wasi

What happens:

  • pull sends the manifest to home-pc and lets it fetch the WASI artifact
  • start runs the app on home-pc
  • access open creates a local entry point and opens the browser automatically

Done.

service.gif

The app runs on home-pc, but you use it from my-laptop through the encrypted Fungi connection.

What Just Ran On home-pc​

filebrowser-lite-wasi uses the built-in WASI runtime that ships with Fungi.

That means:

  • the app runs in a sandboxed runtime on home-pc
  • by default, one app can only access its own service directory under ~/.fungi/services/<APP_NAME> (on home-pc)
  • you can explicitly grant more host paths later if you need them

Optional: Check State And Capabilities​

If you want to see what is happening under the hood, these commands are the most useful:

fungi peer capability
fungi peer admin service list
fungi peer admin service inspect filebrowser-lite-wasi
fungi catalog list
fungi catalog inspect filebrowser-lite-wasi
fungi access list

Use them like this:

  • peer capability shows what the remote node can run
  • peer admin service list shows what is installed and running on home-pc
  • catalog shows what home-pc publishes for consumption
  • access list shows local entry points created on my-laptop

Optional: Try The Docker Runtime​

If you run fungi peer capability, you may also see Docker support on the remote node.

When Docker is available on home-pc, Fungi detects it automatically and manages it through a dedicated agent layer.

Important limits in Docker mode:

  • Fungi only allows containers to use host paths and host ports that its capability policy allows
  • if a manifest asks for paths or ports outside that boundary, Fungi rejects it
  • Fungi only manages containers created by Fungi itself, never touches unrelated containers that already exist on the host

If the remote node is Linux, Docker should already be configured so it can run without sudo.

Download the Docker manifest:

Or download it from the terminal:

curl -L -O https://fungi.rs/downloads/manifests/filebrowser.service.yaml

Then use the same three-step flow:

fungi peer admin service pull ./filebrowser.service.yaml
fungi peer admin service start filebrowser
fungi access open filebrowser

That is the Docker-backed version of the same remote app experience.

Next Step​

Continue with Services And Runtimes to write your own manifest step by step.

If you want more detail, see: