LabTetherA typical homelab runs mostly Linux: Proxmox hosts, Docker containers, maybe a TrueNAS box. But then there's that one Windows Server running Active Directory, or a Windows 10 machine for game streaming, or a handful of Windows VMs that won't go away.
Those Windows machines end up managed some other way.
The Problem with Mixed-OS Homelabs
Many homelab tools start from Linux. Portainer manages Docker containers, and CasaOS runs on Linux. If you need to check on a Windows machine, you're opening a separate RDP session, or wrestling with PowerShell Remoting, or SSHing into Windows (which works but feels wrong).
The result is two parallel workflows: one for your Linux fleet and one for your Windows machines. Different dashboards, different alert systems, different ways of doing the same thing.
We built LabTether to put Windows machines in the same Devices list, with the same metrics, alerts and terminal, as the Linux hosts. On Windows that work is not finished yet.
How LabTether Handles Windows
Windows support is partial: metrics and terminal work, and other features are still in progress. There are two ways to run the agent on Windows:
- The Windows tray app. An early release for the signed-in user. Version 1.7.1 ships as an x64 ZIP (
labtether-agent-win-x64.zip, with a.sha256file); there is no MSI and no arm64 build. It needs Windows 10 1809 or newer, and it checks GitHub once a day for a new version. - The standalone agent. For headless servers, on amd64 or arm64.
labtether-agent.exe install, run from an elevated prompt, registers it as a Windows service.
Here's what you get from a Windows agent:
Metrics. CPU, memory, disk and network, plus a host temperature reading when Windows exposes a usable sensor source. They appear on the same Dashboard and device pages as your Linux machines.
Terminal. Open a PowerShell session from the browser, with no RDP client and no SSH setup. The agent uses PowerShell 7 if it is installed, then Windows PowerShell, then cmd.exe.
Remote desktop. Graphical access in the browser when the Windows host has a supported VNC server, or when the hub has a separately configured direct RDP connection. RDP goes through the optional RDP gateway, which a release install leaves off until you turn it on. See Remote Desktop.
Updates. LabTether does not install Windows Update patches. Snapshot and rollback capabilities depend on the platform the Windows machine runs on. If it is a Proxmox VM, the Proxmox connector can take a snapshot before you patch it and roll back to it later. The Windows agent cannot.
Getting Started
Windows onboarding is still an early workflow. In the console, click Add Device → Agent and create a one-time enrollment token. Then:
- Tray app: download the ZIP from the Windows app releases, check it against its
.sha256file, extract it and start the app. The tray icon walks you through connecting to your hub. - Standalone agent: open PowerShell as Administrator and paste the command the console shows. See Managing Nodes.
macOS and FreeBSD
The macOS menu bar app is supported on macOS 13 or newer: metrics, terminal, desktop through Screen Sharing, and launchd services. FreeBSD has no agent build yet; add a FreeBSD host as a manual SSH device. See the current platform support matrix before deployment.
Try It
The live demo is a read-only console you can open without signing up.
When you're ready to run it yourself:
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -fsSLo install-labtether.sh https://labtether.com/install.sh
less install-labtether.sh
bash install-labtether.sh
Then open http://localhost:3000, paste the one-time setup token and create the owner account. Add agents from there.