A Linux host

Linux is a first-class host. A VPS, a box under the desk, a workstation in the office — anything you can SSH into can run your agents. There is no Linux client; you drive a Linux host from the Mac and iPhone apps.

Requirements

What	Detail
SSH access	key or password, for the initial install
python3	present on essentially every distribution
curl or wget	minimal Debian images may need apt-get install curl
tmux, git	installed for you via apt/dnf/yum/pacman (needs sudo)
systemd user session	for the Offsite agent
An agent CLI	Claude Code, Codex or Grok, installed and logged in

The CPU trap

Check these two before you rent a VPS:

• glibc ≥ 2.28 — that is Ubuntu 20.04+ or Debian 10+.
• Claude Code additionally needs AVX2 on x86_64. Budget KVM hosts often expose a generic QEMU CPU without it, and Claude’s installer then spins forever instead of failing. Codex and Grok run without AVX2.

Offsite preflights both before installing, so a machine that cannot work says so up front. You can check yourself:

grep -q avx2 /proc/cpuinfo && echo "AVX2 ok" || echo "no AVX2 — Claude will not run"
ldd --version | head -1

Always reachable on Linux

The agent runs as a systemd user service. For it to survive logout and reboot, the user needs lingering:

loginctl enable-linger <user>

See Always reachable.

What runs on it

Everything the work itself needs: agent sessions, terminals, git, files, the Browser and Agent Browser cards, notifications, and resume after a reboot — identical to a Mac host.

The Apple-specific cards stay with Apple hardware: the iOS Simulator, deploy to your phone and Computer Use need macOS, so keep a Mac in your fleet for iOS work and let the Linux box carry everything else. Both can be hosts at the same time; the app switches between them in a tap.

Details

• Distribution support: Ubuntu and Debian on x86_64 and arm64 are the tested targets. Others generally work if the package manager is one of apt/dnf/yum/pacman.
• Bootstrap runs from the Mac app over SSH; the host components land in the connecting user’s ~/.offsite, exactly as on macOS.
• Host-only install (no Mac app on hand): on the server run curl -fsSL https://get.offsite.sh/setup.sh | sh. It installs the host and opens the terminal setup wizard (agents, reachability, connect QR, and a host code when the relay is on); then scan the QR on the iPhone, or enter the code with Connect to Existing Host… in the Mac app or in the iPhone’s Host code field. See Pairing devices.
• A systemd unit that reports inactive while the process is clearly running has been seen after a manual install; re-running setup from the app fixes the unit registration.
• Sleep/wake is a macOS concern — Keep the host awake does not apply to Linux hosts, which stay up.