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Solutions for remote connections

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Weikeng Chen edited this page May 21, 2026 · 4 revisions

There are three ways to connect to MonkeyCraft from outside your local network. Tailscale is recommended — Recommended by ImagineFun.

Tailscale (recommended)

Tailscale is a WireGuard-based mesh VPN. Once you install it on your PC and your phone, the two devices get stable private addresses (in the 100.64.0.0/10 range) and can reach each other over an end-to-end-encrypted tunnel — no port-forwarding, no public exposure of MonkeyCraft.

  1. Install Tailscale on your PC and sign in: https://tailscale.com/download.
  2. Install the Tailscale app on your phone and sign in to the same account.
  3. On the PC, open the Tailscale menubar icon (macOS) or system tray icon (Windows). It shows your PC's Tailscale address — a 100.x.y.z number. Copy it.
  4. Start the MonkeyCraft WebSocket server with /monkey start, or enable Start Server at Launch in the config so it's running at the title screen.
  5. In the MonkeyCraft app, enter the 100.x.y.z address with port 9600, and scan the in-game QR code for the password.

MonkeyCraft treats Tailscale addresses as part of your local network — no change to Allow Connections From is needed. When you run /monkey in-game, MonkeyCraft labels any Tailscale-range address as (tailscale like) so you can pick the right one.

Cloudflare Tunnel

Cloudflare Tunnel also works, but it requires a domain name (Cloudflare sells cheap ones — do check the renewal price). You only need a free Cloudflare plan.

Follow Create a tunnel (dashboard) to set up the tunnel, and publish your application at localhost:9600 as a "Published Application".

Do not use trycloudflare — it is very slow.

Ngrok

The simplest one-off option. Create a free account at https://ngrok.com/ and run:

ngrok http 9600

Ngrok prints a public URL that forwards to MonkeyCraft. Easy, but each restart gives you a new URL unless you have a paid plan.

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