Self-Hosting

Overview

Rusty Browser is fully open source. You can run the entire stack on your own servers and keep control of the deployment. You are responsible for your own infrastructure costs and any third-party providers you configure, such as AI models, proxies, or remote compute. The codebase ships as pre-built binaries. You do not need a Rust toolchain to run it.

What’s in the Repo

The repository is a Cargo workspace with five crates:

rusty-server: the HTTP API your clients talk to. Manages the browser registry in Redis, spawns agents via Flux, and runs the AI instruct engine.
rusty-agent: a single-browser gRPC node. One agent runs per browser. It launches Chromium directly via the WebDriver BiDi / CDP protocol through rustenium, applies fingerprint and identity layering via rustenium-identity, and accepts commands from the server over TLS gRPC.
rusty-cli: a terminal client for the HTTP API. See CLI docs.
rusty-common: shared types, Redis store, config, AI providers, and the Flux client.
rusty-proto: shared gRPC proto definitions.

There is also rusty-frontend, a Next.js dashboard for managing sessions visually. See Frontend docs.

Repositories

rusty-browser

Server, agent, CLI, and common libraries

rustenium

Browser engine (Chromium driver)

rustenium-identity

Fingerprint and identity layer

serverless-flux

Scaling infrastructure

Easy Setup (Windows)

The interactive PowerShell setup script handles downloading binaries, walking through configuration, and generating ready-to-use launch scripts. It is best for local setups or anyone who wants to get running quickly. Prerequisites: Node.js v18+ for the frontend, plus Redis running locally or available over the network.

Run the setup script

powershell -Command "curl.exe -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dashn9/rusty-browser/main/setup.ps1 -o setup.ps1; & .\setup.ps1"

The script will:

Download rusty.exe, rusty-cli.exe, flux.exe, and flux-agent.exe into %LOCALAPPDATA%\RustyBrowser
Ask for your Redis URL, AI provider key and model, and optionally AWS/GCP credentials for remote agent scaling
Generate rusty.yaml, flux.yaml, and launch scripts
Optionally add everything to your PATH

If your machine is not publicly reachable from the internet, such as when it is behind NAT, the script can help you configure a tunnel for the gRPC port.

Start the stack

Once setup completes:

rusty-launch              # server only
rusty-launch -Frontend    # server + frontend dashboard

If Windows Terminal is installed, each component opens in its own tab. Otherwise they open in separate windows.

Initialize

Run this once before spawning any browsers. It generates TLS certs, registers the agent function with Flux, and deploys the agent binary:

rusty-cli init
# or use the Initialize button in the frontend UI

Manual Setup

For users who want full control over configuration. Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Step 1: Download the binaries

Download the latest release for your platform from the GitHub releases page. You’ll need:

rusty / rusty.exe: the server
rusty-agent / rusty-agent.exe: the browser agent, spawned automatically per browser
rusty-cli / rusty-cli.exe: the CLI, recommended for setup and testing

Step 2: Start Redis

winget install Redis.Redis
redis-server

sudo apt install redis-server
sudo systemctl start redis

brew install redis
brew services start redis

Step 3: Configure the server

Copy the example config and open it in an editor:

Copy-Item example.rusty.yaml rusty.yaml

cp example.rusty.yaml rusty.yaml

For local mode without a separate Flux server, set flux.local_binary to point at the agent binary:

flux:
  local_binary: ".\rusty-agent.exe"

flux:
  local_binary: "./rusty-agent"

For production with Flux running separately, point to it instead:

flux:
  base_url: "http://127.0.0.1:7227"
  api_key: "your-flux-api-key"
  function_name: "rusty-agent"

Step 4: Start the server

$env:RUSTY_CONFIG = "rusty.yaml"
.\rusty.exe

RUSTY_CONFIG=rusty.yaml ./rusty

Step 5: Initialize

.\rusty-cli.exe init

./rusty-cli init

Step 6: Configure the CLI

.\rusty-cli.exe env set url http://127.0.0.1:8080

./rusty-cli env set url http://127.0.0.1:8080

If your server config enables X-API-Key, also set the CLI key:

.\rusty-cli.exe env set api-key your-local-key

./rusty-cli env set api-key your-local-key

Step 7: Verify

.\rusty-cli.exe browser spawn
.\rusty-cli.exe browser navigate https://example.com
.\rusty-cli.exe browser screenshot
.\rusty-cli.exe browser close-all

./rusty-cli browser spawn
./rusty-cli browser navigate https://example.com
./rusty-cli browser screenshot
./rusty-cli browser close-all

Setting Up Flux (Production Scaling)

Flux is the control plane that rusty-server uses to spawn browser agents. In local mode it runs agents as subprocesses on the same machine. In production mode it provisions and autoscales agent nodes across AWS EC2 or GCP Compute Engine when those providers are configured. The easy setup script configures Flux automatically. If you’re doing a manual setup or want to run Flux separately, here’s how.

Docker (GHCR)

docker run -p 7227:7227 \
  -v /path/to/flux.yaml:/etc/flux/flux.yaml \
  ghcr.io/dashn9/serverless-flux:latest

Windows binary

Download flux.exe from the serverless-flux releases page, create a flux.yaml from the example config, and run it:

.\flux.exe

At minimum your flux.yaml needs:

api_key: your-flux-api-key
redis_addr: localhost:6379

Add an aws or gcp provider block to enable remote node provisioning and autoscaling. Flux handles SSH bootstrapping of agents, TLS cert generation, and scale-up/scale-down automatically. For full configuration options and the serverless agent worker setup, see the serverless-flux GitHub page.

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Self-Hosting

Overview

What’s in the Repo

Repositories

rusty-browser

rustenium

rustenium-identity

serverless-flux

Easy Setup (Windows)

Run the setup script

Start the stack

Initialize

Manual Setup

Step 1: Download the binaries

Step 2: Start Redis

Step 3: Configure the server

Step 4: Start the server

Step 5: Initialize

Step 6: Configure the CLI

Step 7: Verify

Setting Up Flux (Production Scaling)

Docker (GHCR)

Windows binary

​Overview

​What’s in the Repo

​Repositories

rusty-browser

rustenium

rustenium-identity

serverless-flux

​Easy Setup (Windows)

​Run the setup script

​Start the stack

​Initialize

​Manual Setup

​Step 1: Download the binaries

​Step 2: Start Redis

​Step 3: Configure the server

​Step 4: Start the server

​Step 5: Initialize

​Step 6: Configure the CLI

​Step 7: Verify

​Setting Up Flux (Production Scaling)

​Docker (GHCR)

​Windows binary

Overview

What’s in the Repo

Repositories

Easy Setup (Windows)

Run the setup script

Start the stack

Initialize

Manual Setup

Step 1: Download the binaries

Step 2: Start Redis

Step 3: Configure the server

Step 4: Start the server

Step 5: Initialize

Step 6: Configure the CLI

Step 7: Verify

Setting Up Flux (Production Scaling)

Docker (GHCR)

Windows binary