WaitingRm

The Doctor's waiting room for your AI stack — nobody gets past the desk without Telegram verification.

Self-hosted Ollama behind a Docker internal network, accessed via Telegram Mini App. No inbound ports. No shared secrets in client code. Cryptographically verified, LAN-direct.

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How it works

[Telegram Servers] ←── long-poll (outbound only) ──── [telegram-bot]

[Your Phone / LAN Device]
    └─ opens Mini App (hosted on Cloudflare Pages / Vercel)
    └─ JS sends fetch → https://YOUR_LAN_IP:8443/api/chat
              ↓
         [nginx gateway]   (internal Docker network + published LAN port)
              ├─ auth_request → [auth-validator]  ← verifies Telegram HMAC initData
              └─ proxy_pass  → [ollama]           ← LLM inference, no internet access

Key design decisions:

Instead of...	Openclaw uses...
Hardcoded bearer token in JS	Telegram's HMAC-signed initData — verified server-side, rotates per session
HTTP to local gateway	Self-signed TLS cert (auto-generated with LAN IP as SAN)
All services on one network	internal_net: internal: true — Ollama/auth have zero internet routing
Bot seeing backend services	telegram-bot is on a separate network — can reach Telegram, not your stack

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Stack

Service	Image / Build	Role
nginx	custom (nginx:alpine)	TLS gateway, static Mini App host, auth_request router
auth-validator	custom (python:3.12-slim)	Telegram initData HMAC verification
telegram-bot	custom (python:3.12-slim)	Long-poll bot, sends Mini App button to authorized users
ollama	ollama/ollama:latest	LLM inference backend
open-webui	ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main	Optional browser UI (auth-gated at /webui/)

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Prerequisites

• Docker + Docker Compose (or Docker Swarm for multi-node)
• A Telegram bot token from @BotFather
• Your Telegram user ID (get it from @userinfobot)
• A free static host for the Mini App HTML (Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, GitHub Pages)
• NVIDIA GPU optional (required for GPU-accelerated Ollama)

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Setup

1. Clone and configure

git clone https://github.com/hammerhead3377/waitingrm.git
cd waitingrm
cp .env.example .env

Edit .env:

BOT_TOKEN=your_bot_token_from_botfather
ALLOWED_USER_IDS=123456789          # your Telegram user ID
MINI_APP_URL=https://your-app.pages.dev
LAN_IP=192.168.1.100                # this machine's LAN IP

2. Deploy the Mini App HTML

Upload nginx/www/index.html to Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, or GitHub Pages.

Then edit one line in the uploaded index.html:

const GATEWAY = "https://192.168.1.100:8443";   // your LAN_IP

Set this as your bot's Mini App URL in @BotFather → /newapp or /myapps.

3. Start the stack

docker compose up --build

On first boot, Nginx generates a self-signed TLS cert for your LAN IP. Accept it once in your browser at https://LAN_IP:8443 before opening the Mini App (Telegram's WebView will otherwise silently fail the HTTPS connection).

4. Load a model

docker exec -it openclaw-ollama-1 ollama pull llama3

5. Open the bot

Send /start to your bot in Telegram → tap Open Openclaw Terminal.

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Docker Swarm (multi-node)

docker swarm init

# Create isolated overlay network
docker network create --driver overlay --internal internal_net

# Deploy
docker stack deploy -c docker-compose.yml openclaw

Change internal_net.driver to overlay in docker-compose.yml before deploying.

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Security notes

• initData expiry: auth-validator rejects tokens older than 24 hours (replay protection).
• Network isolation: internal_net has internal: true — no container on it can make outbound internet calls.
• telegram-bot isolation: the bot has no networks: clause, placing it on Docker's default bridge. It can reach Telegram but cannot see Ollama, auth-validator, or Open WebUI.
• TLS: self-signed cert covers your LAN IP. For a trusted cert, point a domain at your LAN IP and use Certbot with DNS challenge.
• ALLOWED_USER_IDS: gate is enforced in both the bot (UX) and auth-validator (cryptographic). Removing it from the bot does not bypass the validator.

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Acknowledgements

Concept and architecture by Thomas. Implementation co-developed with Claude (Anthropic).

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License

MIT — fork freely, build something.