privatae-bastion/docs/install.md

Install: the service and the release files

The short version, server and desktop, is in the README.

Your own computer. Run as yourself, install.sh installs the bastion for the whole machine through sudo: sudo true first (one password), then root fetches the same installer from privatae.ai and runs it with --personal, the pairing code (if any) on its standard input, never in an argument; its sudo -H and curl -q read nothing from your home. Your account is recorded as the machine's owner (approvals-owner --account, from SUDO_UID; on your own computer only, never a shared one), so privatae-bastion ui opens the console from it (console). What an earlier, unpaired install for your account left (its user unit or LaunchAgent and ~/.local/bin/privatae-bastion) is removed. install.ps1 does the same on Windows through one UAC prompt.

Just your account. --just-me (Windows: -JustMe) installs it for your account alone, and the installer says what that means: any program running as you can stop it or change what it allows. Where sudo is missing or refuses (no admin rights, no terminal to ask on), that is what it falls back to, and it says so. A paired install for your account stays where it is when you reinstall. Beside a bastion already installed for the whole machine, no second one is installed for an account: the machine's would refuse to run beside it.

A server. Run as root, the installer installs the shared bastion, as below. --personal and --shared choose explicitly; their earlier names --local and --networked still work.

Uninstall. privatae-bastion uninstall removes the service and the program from the installers' places and keeps the state: pairings, keys and the audit log. --delete-data deletes that too, after delete is typed at a terminal. Installed for the whole machine, it needs the administrator; from another account it removes only that account's own bastion.

A whole-machine install runs as the operating system's own service, whoever is signed in, and only the machine's administrator can stop it:

• Linux: the systemd unit privatae-bastion.service, as root.
• macOS: a launchd daemon (ai.privatae.bastion) running as root. The program goes in /Library/Application Support/privatae/bin, which only root can change, with a link on PATH.
• Windows: the service PrivataeBastion, running as LocalSystem. The program goes in Program Files\Privatae, which only administrators can change. The installer needs an elevated terminal, and removes the logon task an earlier install registered. The agent that serves a shared folder runs as the folder's owner, under their own token, while they are signed in to the machine; it never runs as LocalSystem, and the bastion writes nothing into the folder.

On macOS and Windows, privatae-bastion service install|uninstall|status does the same by hand. An administrator's commands (sudo -H … on macOS and Linux, an Administrator terminal on Windows) act on the service's state. From an account that does not administer the machine, pair, run, status and switch are refused, on Linux too, so that account does not end up with a second, empty bastion of its own; status there points at ui.

An install for one account runs as that account: a systemd user unit, a LaunchAgent, or on Windows a logon task that starts it each time you sign in.

A Cloud Host's "Set up a bastion" card gives one line that installs, pairs and starts the bastion: curl -fsSL https://privatae.ai/bastion/install.sh | PRIVATAE_PAIR_CODE='skp_…' sh on macOS and Linux, & ([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://privatae.ai/bastion/install.ps1))) -Pair 'skp_…' on Windows. Installed as you, it then runs as your systemd user unit privatae-bastion, your LaunchAgent ai.privatae.bastion.user, or the logon task. Where it cannot use one, the installer starts the bastion without it and says how long it will run: on Linux until the machine restarts, on Windows until you sign out.

Release binaries are served from https://dl.privatae.ai. The release manifest (version.json, read by the installers at https://dl.privatae.ai/version.json and by the self-updater at https://privatae.ai/bastion/version.json) lists the current version, the commit it was built from, and the URL plus SHA-256 of every binary. Beside it, version.json.<first 16 hex of its sha256>.sig is an ed25519 signature over a statement naming the release, its version and the manifest's sha256, made on the key holder's own computer with deploy/release-sign.