Self-hosted AI servers

Alongside Apple Intelligence and hosted providers, Newsbin can point its intelligence features at a model server you run yourself — Ollama, LM Studio, mlx-serve, llama.cpp, or anything else that speaks the OpenAI-compatible API.

Connecting your server

In Settings → Intelligence, choose Custom Provider and enter your server’s address in the Base URL field — for example:

http://192.168.1.20:11434/v1

Newsbin fetches the server’s model list automatically so you can pick the model you want. If your server requires an API key, add it; most local servers don’t.

The HTTPS rule

For your security, Newsbin requires encrypted (HTTPS) connections to servers reached by name — but allows plain HTTP for addresses that can only exist on a private network. In practice:

Base URL	Works?
https://… (anything)	✅ Always
http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1	✅
http:// + an IP address (192.168.…, 10.…, Tailscale 100.…)	✅
http://name.local (Bonjour/mDNS, e.g. macstudio.local)	✅
http://…ts.net (Tailscale MagicDNS)	✅
http://…home.arpa or http://…internal (home/private DNS)	✅
http:// + any other domain name	❌ Blocked

If your server’s name isn’t on the list, the fix is one of:

• Use the IP address instead of the name. Same server, same network — just less pretty.
• Give the server a certificate. A reverse proxy like Caddy does this automatically, and Tailscale users can run tailscale cert on the server.

Reaching your server away from home

A local server is only reachable from your home network — unless you bridge your devices together. We like Tailscale for this: it creates a private, WireGuard-encrypted network between your devices, with no ports opened to the internet.

Once your devices and the server share a tailnet, use either form in the Base URL:

• http://your-machine.your-tailnet.ts.net:11434/v1 — the friendly MagicDNS name
• http://100.x.y.z:11434/v1 — the machine’s tailnet IP (shown by tailscale ip -4)

Even though the URL says http, everything on a tailnet is encrypted end-to-end by WireGuard before it leaves your device.

Your articles and prompts go directly from your device to your server — Newsbin never routes them through Xetabit or anyone else. See AI, on your terms for the full picture.