A Fly Machine

A Fly Machine is a Linux VM on Fly.io. Here it runs one container that does nothing but stay up. You connect with fly ssh console, and your home folder (Rakumux, your agents, your code) lives on a volume, so it survives restarts and new deploys. You need a Fly.io account and flyctl, signed in with fly auth login.

Set it up

Write a Dockerfile and fly.toml

In a new folder, save this as Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:24.04
RUN apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends ca-certificates curl git less nano openssh-client \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
ENV HOME=/root
CMD ["bash", "-c", "if [ -x /root/.local/bin/rakumux ]; then /root/.local/bin/rakumux daemon start; fi; exec sleep infinity"]

The last line starts Rakumux’s background server whenever the machine starts, so sessions come back after a restart without you logging in. Then save this as fly.toml, with an app name of your own and the region nearest you:

app = "rakumux-yourname"
primary_region = "syd"

[build]

[mounts]
  source = "home"
  destination = "/root"

[[vm]]
  size = "shared-cpu-2x"
  memory = "4gb"

There’s no [http_service]: nothing is exposed, and Fly never stops the machine for being idle.

Create the app, its volume and the machine

fly apps create rakumux-yourname
fly volumes create home --size 20 --region syd
fly deploy --ha=false

Install Rakumux

fly ssh console

On the machine:

curl -fsSL https://rakumux.com/install.sh | PREFIX="$HOME/.local" bash
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Install your agents and start working

Install and sign in to your agents as on any Linux machine; whatever goes in your home folder is kept on the volume. Then run rakumux in a project and start sessions as usual. Close the console whenever you like: the sessions keep running.

Come back

Run fly ssh console from any computer with flyctl, then rakumux: the same sessions, still running. Everything in Your own server applies, including checking on agents from your phone.

Good to know

Cost. About $25 a month for 2 shared CPUs, 4 GB of memory and a 20 GB volume, running all the time. See Fly’s pricing.
Only your home folder is kept. Programs installed with apt go away on the next deploy; add them to the Dockerfile instead.
The volume lives on one host. Fly keeps daily snapshots of it, but push your work as you go.
Updates. U in Rakumux mode updates Rakumux in your home folder, like anywhere else.

Get started

Where to run it

Workflows

Using Rakumux

Coding agents

Account and AI titles

Phone access

Reference

Set it up

Come back

Good to know

​Set it up

​Come back

​Good to know

Set it up

Come back

Good to know