Daemon

Manage the long-lived localcan background process.

start

localcan start              # foreground (stays attached, logs to stderr)
localcan start --detach     # background (returns immediately)
localcan start -v           # verbose / debug logging

Foreground mode is convenient when you want to see daemon logs in your terminal — for example while debugging a tunnel that won't connect. Press Ctrl+C to stop. Detached mode is what you want most of the time on Linux servers.

If a daemon is already running, start exits with an error. Use restart to replace the running instance.

On macOS and Windows the bundled desktop app starts the daemon automatically when it launches. You only need localcan start from the terminal if you've explicitly stopped it (localcan stop) or if you're running standalone.

stop

localcan stop

Tells the running daemon to shut down. Open tunnels close, the socket is removed, and the process exits.

restart

localcan restart            # foreground
localcan restart --detach   # background

Stops the running daemon (if any), waits for the socket to clean up, and starts a fresh one. Useful after a localcan update to start running the new binary.

reload

localcan reload

Tells the running daemon to re-read every file under ~/.localcan/projects/. New project files are picked up, edited ones are re-applied, and removed ones are torn down — all without dropping connections to projects you didn't touch. This is the right command after editing YAML by hand.

status

localcan status

Prints daemon version, RPC protocol, project count, and the address it's listening on (a Unix socket path on macOS/Linux, a named pipe on Windows). When something needs attention — license updates expired, a newer CLI is available — status adds one line of guidance at the bottom.

Status     running
Version    3.0.0-beta.4
Protocol   1
Projects   2
Address    /Users/you/.localcan/daemon.sock

CLI update available: 3.0.0-beta.5 — run 'localcan update' to install

Pass --json to get the same data as a structured object for scripting.

Logs

Foreground daemons write to stderr. Detached daemons (and the bundled desktop daemon) discard stdout/stderr — to see what's happening, run localcan stop && localcan start -v in a terminal you can watch.