Forem: lastlink

Securely Exposing LM Studio with Nginx Proxy + Auth + Manage loaded models

lastlink — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:21:00 +0000

Most guides highlight Cloudflare tunnels or similar services for exposing local AI models. Tunnels are certainly convenient, but if you leave them open without any authentication, they can become insecure. In those cases, a VPN is often recommended to provide protection. Alternatively, you can set up a direct, secure, and controlled proxy for LM Studio that adds its own authentication layer — giving you safe access without relying on a VPN.

This article shows how to set up an Nginx proxy with authentication so you can safely expose LM Studio to the internet and use it anywhere, including on your phone.

🚀 Project Setup

Download LM Studio

Grab the latest release from the LM Studio website and install it on your machine. Turn on server and change port to 1250
Clone the repo and start the dev server:

git clone https://github.com/funktechno/lm_studio_manager.git
cd lm_studio_manager
npm install
cp .env.sample .env
npm run dev

use this tool to manage loaded models

🐳 Run Nginx Proxy in Docker

We’ll run Nginx in a container, mounting a template config and an .htpasswd file for Basic Auth.

⚠️ Important: Remember to change my-secret-key and update your .htpasswd file with your own credentials before running exposing this to the internet!

linux

docker run -d \
  --name lmstudio-proxy \
  -p 1234:1234 \
  -e API_SECRET_KEY=my-secret-key \
  -v .htpasswd:/etc/nginx/.htpasswd:ro \
  -v ./nginx.conf.template:/etc/nginx/templates/nginx.conf.template:ro \
  nginx:latest

windows

docker run -d `
  --name lmstudio-proxy `
  -p 1234:1234 `
  -e API_SECRET_KEY=my-secret-key `
  -v ${PWD}\nginx.conf.template:/etc/nginx/templates/nginx.conf.template:ro `
  -v ${PWD}/.htpasswd:/etc/nginx/.htpasswd:ro `
  nginx:latest

🔑 Generating a .htpasswd File

You can generate a password file using this website

📱 Access Anywhere

Once the proxy is running, you can access LM Studio securely:

Web UI:

http://localhost:1234/manage/ default admin, admin
or tunnel of choice https://yourdomain/manage/

API:

http://localhost:1234/
tunnel https://yourdomain/ with Bearer token auth

Because this setup uses HTTPS + Basic Auth/Bearer tokens, you can connect from any device — laptop, tablet, or phone — without needing a VPN.

⚙️ Sample Continue.dev vscode extension Config
Here’s a sample config.yml for Continue.dev pointing to your proxy:

name: Local Config
version: 1.0.0
schema: v1
models:
  - name: Local LM Studio Server
    provider: lmstudio
    model: ministral-8b-instruct-2410
    # specify model loaded
    # codegemma-7b-it
    # qwen/qwen2.5-coder-14b - slow, but not super slow
    # deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528-qwen3-8b
    # deepseek-coder-33b-instruct
    # vertex-qwen-7b-ollama-coder-shadcn-10epoch-v1.3
    # ministral-8b-instruct-2410
    # nginx proxy auth
    apiKey: my-secret-key
    api_base: "https://yourdomain/"
    roles:
      - chat
      - edit
      - apply
      - autocomplete
      - summarize

✅ Summary

Download repo → npm run dev

Run Docker → Nginx proxy with auth

Expose securely → Basic Auth for /manage/, Bearer token for API

Use anywhere → Works on any device, no VPN required

With this setup, you create a secure, self‑hosted gateway to LM Studio — no external dependencies and no VPN needed, just a proxy you fully control.

Hacktoberfest 2025 — Advancing SQL Tooling in Draw.io

lastlink — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 12:21:00 +0000

Back in Hacktoberfest 2022, I kicked off a set of contributions aimed at making SQL DDL generation and schema visualization easier using open-source tools. This year, I revisited those efforts with a sharper focus on Draw.io plugin development.

🔧 What’s New in 2025

Draw.io remains a powerful tool for diagramming, but its native support for SQL workflows is limited. To bridge that gap, I’ve continued building and refining third-party plugins that allow:

Importing SQL DDLs into Draw.io diagrams
Exporting diagrams back into SQL DDL
Improved foreign key line generation across multiple database types
Support for PostgreSQL relationship arrows (finally!)

These updates are part of the sqltooling-drawio repo, which now includes better test coverage, multi-DB compatibility, and easier integration with the Draw.io desktop app.

🧪 Pull Requests & Plugin Highlights

I submitted two key PRs to the Draw.io repo:

While Draw.io contributions remain closed-source, these plugins can be manually installed and used with the desktop version or VSCode integration.

📦 Supporting Packages

@funktechno/sqlsimpleparser: Converts SQL DDL into JSON models for Draw.io import

My Hacktober 2022 Contributions mostly SQL DDL uml extensions

lastlink — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 01:14:40 +0000

Something that has been on my TODO list is to write a tool for easy sql DDL generation using some open sourced tools.

I really like working with UML and entity relations for modeling tables and relationships in a database schema. Sadly only lucidcharts had the best functionality for exporting SQL DDL for easy create tables. There are some options specific to the database you are using, but not easily cross database type.

I found out that mermaid had an erDiagram type and that there are UML and entity relation objects in https://www.diagrams.net/ which uses drawio.

I worked on making changes to support easy importing of a database schema and also exporting it back out as sql DDL, pretty happy with my results.

Packages

Mermaid sql package @funktechno/little-mermaid-2-the-sql

I added in the samples how to generate a mermaid erDiagram from an existing database using schemacrawler.
sample er diagram

  erDiagram
  %% comment 1
  Persons {
      int PersonID PK "NOT NULL"
      varchar255 LastName
      varchar255 FirstName
      varchar255 Address
      varchar255 City
  }

  %% comment 2
  Orders {
      int OrderID PK "NOT NULL"
      int PersonID FK "NOT NULL"
  }

  Persons ||--o{ Orders : "[Persons.PersonId] to [Orders.PersonId]"

sample output

CREATE TABLE "Persons" (
"City" varchar(255),
"Address" varchar(255),
"FirstName" varchar(255),
"LastName" varchar(255),
"PersonID" int NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY("PersonID")
);

CREATE TABLE "Orders" (
"PersonID" int NOT NULL,
"OrderID" int NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY("OrderID"),
FOREIGN KEY ("PersonId") REFERENCES "Persons"("PersonId")
);

Tool for converting a SQL DDL to simple json models for easy import into drawio @funktechno/sqlsimpleparser

Drawio pull requests

I put in 2 pull requests into drawio to enable sql import and export, from their readme they are closed contributions. So I hope that these changes make them in regardless. Very useful, you can also run the plugins manually. I used the desktop github repo for testing and running an electron debugger.
I've pulled my changes into a repository sqltooling-drawio and added notes on multiple ways to install the plugins and use with drawio. It's also easier to contribute to. There is a sql plugin for importing/exporting sql DDL as well as a nosql version for importing/exporting openapi spec and typescript interfaces.
pull requests (now closed since they don't allow contributions)
1. export sql DLL plugin
  - Preview
2. improved sql parser for sql import plugin
  - Preview

New 2025 contributions

see Hacktoberfest 2025

dotnet-ci-pipelines

lastlink — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 14:04:02 +0000

My Workflow

Note: # description: A project to demonstrate using github actions for a .net core 3.1 project. Uses unit tests, json snapshots, database tests using docker service containers. Demonstrates their use in github actions, bitbucket, azure devops, and gitlab.

Submission Category:

Note: # Maintainer Must-Haves

Yaml File or Link to Code

lastlink / dotnet-ci-pipelines

dotnet ci cd pipelines for github, azure devops, gitlab, bitbucket, and etc.

DOTNET CORE CI PIPELINE EXAMPLE:

Goal to have dotnet core c# example pipelines for major git source control dev ops including github, azure devops, gitlab, bitbucket, and etc. Should auto run only on a new pull request, show test results in native ui per website, code coverage, and some additional manual steps running code quality analysis. Badge support native is also nice or from https://shields.io/category/build. Also will try service containers and database unit tests Originally off of gitlab-ci-example-dotnetcore.

Contribution

Please do a pull request to the proper source control pipeline that you are trying to update.

name: .NET Core

# use https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=me-dutour-mathieu.vscode-github-actions to validate yml in vscode
env:
  NUGET_PACKAGES_DIRECTORY: '.nupkg'
  RESHARPER_CLI_NAME: 'JetBrains.ReSharper.CommandLineTools.Unix'
  RESHARPER_CLI_VERSION: "2019.2.3"
  DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay
  CONTAINER_IMAGE: codeclimate/codeclimate
  CONTAINER_TAG: '0.85.2'
  rIds: ${{ secrets.rIds }}
  dotnetVersion: 3.1.102

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master
  push:
    branches:
      - master

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.dotnetVersion}}
    - name: Build with dotnet
      run: |
        export DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1
        dotnet publish -c Release
    - name: Tests
      run: |
        cp MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/appSettings.gitlab.json MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/AppSettings.json
        dotnet test --logger "junit" /p:CollectCoverage=true /p:CoverletOutputFormat=opencover /p:CoverletOutput='./TestResults/'
    - name: Coverage Report
      run: |
        dotnet --version
        dotnet tool install dotnet-reportgenerator-globaltool --tool-path tools
        ./tools/reportgenerator "-reports:**/TestResults/coverage.opencover.xml;" "-targetdir:Reports" -reportTypes:TextSummary;
        ./tools/reportgenerator "-reports:**/TestResults/coverage.opencover.xml;" "-targetdir:Reports" -reportTypes:Html;
        ./tools/reportgenerator "-reports:**/TestResults/coverage.opencover.xml;" "-targetdir:Reports" -reportTypes:Badges;
        cat ./Reports/Summary.txt
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v1
      with:
          name: CodeCoverage
          path: Reports
    - name: Resharper Code Quality
      run: |
        # apt update && apt install -y curl zip unzip
        curl -LO "https://download.jetbrains.com/resharper/ReSharperUltimate.$RESHARPER_CLI_VERSION/$RESHARPER_CLI_NAME.$RESHARPER_CLI_VERSION.zip"
        unzip -q $RESHARPER_CLI_NAME.$RESHARPER_CLI_VERSION.zip -d "resharper"
        mkdir -p CodeQuality
        files=(*.sln)
        sh ./resharper/dupfinder.sh "${files[0]}" --output=CodeQuality/dupfinderReport.html --format=Html
        sh ./resharper/inspectcode.sh "${files[0]}" --output=CodeQuality/inspectcodeReport.html --format=Html
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v1
      with:
          name: CodeQuality
          path: CodeQuality
    - name: prerelease
      if: ${{ env.rIds }} != ''
      run: |
        echo 'build, obfuscate, and release'
        dotnet tool install Obfuscar.GlobalTool --tool-path tools --version 2.2.28
        bash scripts/extractRelease.sh
        export rIds=${{ env.rIds }}
        bash ./scripts/pipeline.sh
        bash ./scripts/finalRelease.sh
    - name: upload release
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
      if: ${{ env.rIds }} != ''
      with:
        name: Release_unix
        path: Release/post

  build-win:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.dotnetVersion}}
    - name: Build with dotnet
      run: |
        set DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1
        dotnet publish -c Release
    - name: Tests
      run: |
        copy MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/appSettings.gitlab.json MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/AppSettings.json
        dotnet test --logger "junit" /p:CollectCoverage=true /p:CoverletOutputFormat=opencover /p:CoverletOutput='.\TestResults\'
    - name: prerelease
      if: ${{ env.rIds }} != ''
      run: |
        echo "build, obfuscate, and release"
        dotnet tool install Obfuscar.GlobalTool --tool-path tools --version 2.2.28
        .\scripts\extractRelease.cmd
        set rIds=$env:rIds
        .\scripts\pipeline.cmd
        .\scripts\finalRelease.cmd
    - name: upload release
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
      if: ${{ env.rIds }} != ''
      with:
        name: Release_win
        path: Release\post

  unit_test_db_mssql:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Service containers to run with `runner-job`
    services:
      # Label used to access the service container
      localhost_mysql:
        # Docker Hub image
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest
        #
        ports:
          # Opens tcp port 6379 on the host and service container
          - 1433:1433
        env:
          GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY: recursive
          ACCEPT_EULA: Y
          SA_PASSWORD: yourStrong(!)Password
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.dotnetVersion}}
    - name: enabledb
      run: cp ./MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/appSettings.bitbucket.mssql.json ./MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/AppSettings.json
    - name: Tests
      run: |
        cd MyProject.Repository.Test
        dotnet test --logger "junit" /p:CollectCoverage=true /p:CoverletOutputFormat=opencover /p:CoverletOutput='./TestResults/'

  unit_test_db_postgres:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Service containers to run with `runner-job`
    services:
      # Label used to access the service container
      redis:
        # Docker Hub image
        image: postgres:11
        #
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
        # Provide the password for postgres
        env:
          POSTGRES_DB: mockDb
          POSTGRES_USER: postgres
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: "mysecretpassword"
          POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD: trust
        # Set health checks to wait until postgres has started
        options: >-
          --health-cmd pg_isready
          --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s
          --health-retries 5
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.dotnetVersion}}
    - name: enabledb
      run: cp ./MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/appSettings.devops.postgres.json ./MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/AppSettings.json
    - name: Tests
      run: |
        cd MyProject.Repository.Test
        dotnet test --logger "junit" /p:CollectCoverage=true /p:CoverletOutputFormat=opencover /p:CoverletOutput='./TestResults/'

  unit_test_db_mysql:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Service containers to run with `runner-job`
    services:
      # Label used to access the service container
      redis:
        # Docker Hub image
        image: mysql:5.7.29
        #
        ports:
          - 3306:3306
        env:
          MYSQL_DATABASE: "mockDb"
          MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: "mysecretpw"
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.dotnetVersion}}
    - name: enabledb
      run: cp ./MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/appSettings.devops.mysql.json ./MyProject.Repository.Test/Data/AppSettings.json
    - name: Tests
      run: |
        cd MyProject.Repository.Test
        dotnet test --logger "junit" /p:CollectCoverage=true /p:CoverletOutputFormat=opencover /p:CoverletOutput='./TestResults/'

  code_docs:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    name: code documentation
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - name: docfx
        run: |
          curl -LO "https://github.com/dotnet/docfx/releases/download/v2.48/docfx.zip"
          powershell.exe -NoP -NonI -Command "Expand-Archive '.\docfx.zip' '.\docfx\'" 
          ./docfx/docfx.exe
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v1
        with:
          name: CodeDocs
          path: _site

  security:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Snyk Security Scan
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - name: Setup .NET Core
        uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
        with:
          dotnet-version: ${{ env.dotnetVersion}}
      - name: Build with dotnet
        run: |
          export DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1
          dotnet build
      - name: Run Snyk to check for vulnerabilities
        uses: snyk/actions/dotnet@master
        with:
          args: --file=MyProject.sln
        env:
          SNYK_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SNYK_TOKEN }}

Additional Resources / Info

Note: # https://github.com/lastlink/dotnet-ci-pipelines/blob/master/.github/workflows/dotnetcore.yml

Note: # @lastlink

[Reminder]: # (Submissions are due on December 8th, 2021 (11:59 PM PT or 2 AM ET/6 AM UTC on December 9th).