Universal Host Manager MCP

A cross-platform Model Context Protocol server for administering a Linux or macOS host through MCP clients such as ChatGPT and Claude.

It uses FastMCP Streamable HTTP transport, Auth0 OAuth, bounded file tools, output limits and command timeouts.

Features

• Linux and macOS support
• Streamable HTTP endpoint
• Auth0 OAuth integration
• File reads, writes and directory listings constrained to MCP_WORKSPACE_DIR
• Configurable command timeouts and output truncation
• File-size limits and decoding fallback
• Fail-closed startup when authentication is not configured
• Example systemd and launchd services

Tools

Tool	Parameters	Purpose
run_command	command: str, timeout: int	Runs an arbitrary shell command with the workspace as its working directory
read_file	path: str	Reads a text file inside the workspace
write_file	path: str, content: str	Writes UTF-8 text inside the workspace
list_dir	path: str = "."	Lists a directory inside the workspace
system_metrics	none	Reports disk, memory and top-process information

The workspace boundary applies to the file tools. It does not sandbox run_command; commands retain all permissions of the service's OS user.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Linux or macOS
• Auth0 account for remote use
• HTTPS endpoint for remote MCP clients

Install

PyPI (recommended)

pip install universal-host-manager-mcp

Next: run uhm-setup to generate your .env — see Configure below.

uv / pipx

Without polluting a project environment:

uvx --from universal-host-manager-mcp uhm-setup

This installs into a throwaway environment, runs the setup wizard, and writes .env in the current directory. From then on, run the server itself the same way: uvx universal-host-manager-mcp.

From source (for development)

git clone https://github.com/Abktya/universal-host-manager-mcp.git
cd universal-host-manager-mcp
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Next: run uhm-setup to generate your .env — see Configure below.

Configure

The easiest way is the interactive setup wizard, installed alongside the server:

uhm-setup

It asks for your workspace directory (offering to create it, and warning before pointing it at a broad system or home directory), walks you through picking a networking method (Cloudflare Tunnel, ngrok's free static domain, or your own URL), checks that your Auth0 tenant domain actually resolves, and writes a .env file with 600 permissions in the current directory — backing up any existing one to .env.bak first.

Prefer to do it by hand? Create a .env file (copy .env.example if you installed from source) with an explicitly restricted workspace:

HOST=127.0.0.1
PORT=8765
MCP_BASE_URL=https://mcp.example.com
MCP_WORKSPACE_DIR=/home/youruser/workspace

AUTH0_DOMAIN=your-tenant.eu.auth0.com
AUTH0_CLIENT_ID=replace_me
AUTH0_CLIENT_SECRET=replace_me
AUTH0_AUDIENCE=https://mcp.example.com/

Never commit .env.

Auth0 setup

This project uses FastMCP's Auth0Provider fixed-client OAuth integration.

1. In Auth0, create an API.
2. Use your public MCP URL as its identifier/audience, for example https://mcp.example.com/.
3. Create a Regular Web Application.
4. Put its domain, client ID and client secret in .env.
5. Add only the callback URLs required by your MCP clients to the Auth0 application's allowed callback URLs.
6. Set the application's allowed web origins and logout URLs as required by your clients.
7. Keep RS256 signing enabled.

FastMCP also supports an Auth0 MCP-native/DCR path through Auth0MCPProvider. This repository currently uses the manually managed, fixed-client Auth0Provider path.

Run

universal-host-manager-mcp

(Running from a source checkout with the .venv activated works the same way — the console script is installed by pip install -e ..)

With the default port, the Streamable HTTP endpoint is:

http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp

For an intentional local-only test without Auth0:

ALLOW_INSECURE_NO_AUTH=true universal-host-manager-mcp

Do not use insecure mode on a publicly reachable endpoint.

Cloudflare Tunnel

Install cloudflared, authenticate it and create a named tunnel:

cloudflared tunnel login
cloudflared tunnel create universal-host-manager-mcp
cloudflared tunnel route dns universal-host-manager-mcp mcp.example.com

Create ~/.cloudflared/config.yml:

tunnel: YOUR_TUNNEL_ID
credentials-file: /home/youruser/.cloudflared/YOUR_TUNNEL_ID.json

ingress:
  - hostname: mcp.example.com
    service: http://127.0.0.1:8765
  - service: http_status:404

Validate and run it:

cloudflared tunnel ingress validate
cloudflared tunnel run universal-host-manager-mcp

Your remote MCP URL will be:

https://mcp.example.com/mcp

Set MCP_BASE_URL=https://mcp.example.com; do not include /mcp in MCP_BASE_URL.

No domain? Use ngrok's free static domain

Auth0 OAuth needs a stable HTTPS URL, but you don't need to own a domain to get one. Unlike ngrok's old random URLs (which changed every restart) or Cloudflare's login-free quick tunnels (same problem), ngrok's free tier includes one static subdomain per account that never changes, at no cost.

1. Create a free account at ngrok.com and install the ngrok CLI.

2. Add your auth token (shown on your ngrok dashboard):

   ngrok config add-authtoken <your-token>
   

3. Claim your free static domain from the ngrok dashboard (Domains → New Domain). You'll get something like your-name.ngrok-free.app.

4. Start the tunnel, pointing at the port the server listens on:

   ngrok http --url=your-name.ngrok-free.app 8765
   

   Leave this running in a terminal, tmux/screen session, or as its own systemd service alongside the one in Background service.

5. Set MCP_BASE_URL=https://your-name.ngrok-free.app in .env (keep HOST=127.0.0.1, exactly as with the Cloudflare Tunnel setup above — ngrok forwards to your local port, the server itself still only listens on loopback).

6. In Auth0, add https://your-name.ngrok-free.app to the application's allowed callback URLs, web origins and logout URLs (see Auth0 setup) — you only need to do this once, since the domain is permanent.

Your remote MCP URL is:

https://your-name.ngrok-free.app/mcp

This is a good fit for personal use or a small number of clients. For production traffic at scale, ngrok's free tier applies connection/bandwidth limits — check their pricing page if you outgrow it, or switch to the domain-based Cloudflare Tunnel setup above.

AWS EC2 Deployment

These steps deploy the server on an EC2 instance and expose it safely to remote MCP clients.

1. Launch the instance

• AMI: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (the commands below are for Ubuntu/apt; on Amazon Linux 2023 use sudo dnf install -y python3-pip instead)
• Instance type: t3.micro/t3.small is enough for typical management workloads
• Security group: allow inbound SSH (22) from your own IP only. No other inbound port is required if you use the Cloudflare Tunnel option below.

2. Install the server

SSH into the instance, then install from PyPI:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y python3-pip python3-venv
python3 -m venv ~/uhm-venv
source ~/uhm-venv/bin/activate
pip install universal-host-manager-mcp

3. Configure

mkdir -p ~/workspace
cat > ~/.env << 'EOF'
HOST=127.0.0.1
PORT=8765
MCP_BASE_URL=https://mcp.example.com
MCP_WORKSPACE_DIR=/home/ubuntu/workspace

AUTH0_DOMAIN=your-tenant.eu.auth0.com
AUTH0_CLIENT_ID=replace_me
AUTH0_CLIENT_SECRET=replace_me
AUTH0_AUDIENCE=https://mcp.example.com/
EOF
chmod 600 ~/.env

Keep HOST=127.0.0.1. The server should never listen directly on the instance's public interface — internet exposure is handled entirely by the tunnel or load balancer described below, not by opening the instance's own port.

4. Networking: get an HTTPS URL to the instance

Auth0 OAuth requires HTTPS. Pick one option:

Option A — Cloudflare Tunnel (recommended, no inbound port needed)

Run the steps from the Cloudflare Tunnel section above, from the EC2 instance. Because the tunnel is an outbound-only connection, you don't need to open any inbound port beyond SSH, don't need an Elastic IP, and the instance can even sit in a private subnet behind a NAT gateway.

Don't own a domain? Run the steps from No domain? Use ngrok's free static domain above instead — same outbound-only, no-inbound-port setup, just from the EC2 instance.

Option B — Application Load Balancer with an ACM certificate

• Request an ACM certificate for your domain and attach it to an ALB
• Create an HTTPS (443) listener on the ALB forwarding to the instance's PORT
• Security group on the instance: allow inbound PORT only from the ALB's security group, never from 0.0.0.0/0
• Point your DNS at the ALB and set MCP_BASE_URL to that hostname

5. Run as a systemd service

Reuse the included unit (see Background service below):

sudo cp examples/mcp-manager.service /etc/systemd/system/
# edit User=, WorkingDirectory=, EnvironmentFile= and ExecStart= to point at
# ~/uhm-venv/bin/universal-host-manager-mcp and ~/.env
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mcp-manager
sudo systemctl status mcp-manager --no-pager

6. Elastic IP

Not required for either networking option. The Cloudflare Tunnel connects outbound regardless of the instance's address, and an ALB registers targets by instance ID or private IP, so it doesn't need one either. Only add an Elastic IP if something else in your setup depends on a fixed public IP for this instance.

ChatGPT and Claude

Add the public Streamable HTTP URL to the client's MCP/connector configuration:

https://mcp.example.com/mcp

Complete the Auth0 sign-in when the client opens the authorization flow. The exact settings screens and supported connector options can change, so follow the current client documentation rather than using legacy SSE instructions.

Multiple clients can connect to the same running HTTP server. Each client authenticates independently; no separate server process or port is required.

Background service

Linux systemd

Copy and edit the included unit:

sudo cp examples/mcp-manager.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mcp-manager
sudo systemctl status mcp-manager --no-pager

The example uses systemd hardening directives. Adjust ReadWritePaths, ProtectHome, the user, paths and permissions to match the resources the MCP server genuinely needs.

macOS launchd

Edit paths in examples/com.user.mcpmanager.plist, then:

cp examples/com.user.mcpmanager.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.mcpmanager.plist
launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.user.mcpmanager

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
HOST	127.0.0.1	Listen address
PORT	8765	Listen port
MCP_BASE_URL	local URL	Public OAuth base URL, without /mcp
MCP_WORKSPACE_DIR	user home	Boundary for file tools and command working directory
MAX_OUTPUT_CHARS	64000	Maximum returned tool-output characters
DEFAULT_CMD_TIMEOUT	300	Default command timeout in seconds
MAX_CMD_TIMEOUT	1800	Maximum accepted command timeout
MAX_READ_BYTES	5000000	Maximum file size read by read_file
MAX_WRITE_BYTES	5000000	Maximum content size written by write_file
LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Python log level
LOG_COMMANDS	false	Log run_command's command text (may contain secrets) instead of just its timeout
FASTMCP_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES	off (forced unless you set it)	FastMCP's own PyPI update-check on startup
ALLOW_INSECURE_NO_AUTH	false	Explicit local-development authentication bypass

Testing

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest tests/

CI runs the suite against fastmcp 2.13, 3.x and 4.x on every push (see the badge above), since @mcp.tool()'s return type changed between major versions and tests call tools through a small version-agnostic helper (tests/conftest.py::call_tool) to cover all three.

Download

Clone with Git:

git clone https://github.com/Abktya/universal-host-manager-mcp.git

Or use Code → Download ZIP on GitHub.

License

MIT