Sign in
Open IXEL Mesh and choose Sign in. It shows a short code and opens your browser at auth.ixel.si. Sign in to your IXEL account (or create one), check that the code matches, and approve it.
You can approve from any browser, on any device, which is handy for a computer without a screen. The device then joins your mesh and stays signed in for 180 days. After that, IXEL Mesh asks you to approve it again.
Each device makes its own keys the first time it runs. The private key never leaves the device; IXEL only ever receives the public key.
Turn it on and off
The switch at the top of IXEL Mesh connects and disconnects this device. When you disconnect, your other devices see it go offline straight away, and it stays signed in.
By default IXEL Mesh connects as soon as it starts. To change that, turn off Connect automatically when IXEL Mesh starts in Settings.
See your devices
IXEL Mesh lists your other devices with their status:
| Dot | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | Connected: there’s a direct, encrypted connection to it now. |
| Amber | Online, and connecting. |
| Grey | Offline: it isn’t running IXEL Mesh right now. |
Every device has a name (like gpu-box), an IPv4 address in 198.18.0.0/15 and an IPv6 address. Click the copy button next to a device to copy its address.
Reach your other devices
In this release, IXEL Mesh runs entirely inside its own app, with no administrator rights and nothing changed on your system. Other programs reach your mesh through its built-in SOCKS5 proxy at 127.0.0.1:1055, where device names work as hostnames:
# A web service on another device
curl --socks5-hostname 127.0.0.1:1055 http://gpu-box:8080/
# SSH, from macOS or Linux (add -p PORT if its SSH server isn't on 22)
ssh -o ProxyCommand='nc -X 5 -x 127.0.0.1:1055 %h %p' you@gpu-boxBrowsers and many other apps can use a SOCKS5 proxy in their network settings. You can change the proxy address, or turn it off, in IXEL Mesh’s Network settings.
A system-wide mode, where every program reaches mesh addresses directly with no proxy, is coming in a later release.
Reaching this device
Your other devices can reach every port on this device, TCP and UDP, as if they were on your local network. There’s nothing to share or open first, and only devices in your own mesh can connect; anything else is dropped before it reaches the app.
To keep a service private, have it refuse connections from other machines, or block it in the device’s firewall.
In this release, connections from your devices reach a service as if they came from the device itself (127.0.0.1). So services that listen only on localhost are reachable from your other devices too, and the operating system’s firewall doesn’t see them as outside traffic. The coming system-wide mode delivers them on a real network interface, where your firewall applies as usual.
Sign out
In Settings → Account, choose Sign out and remove this device. Your other devices can no longer reach it. You can sign in again at any time, and the device keeps its key and name.