Lemonade Server remote access — AMD NPU and GPU

By default, Lemonade Server listens on http://127.0.0.1:13305/v1 — it isn’t reachable from another machine unless you bind it wider or forward the port. Lemonade Server doesn’t ship built-in authentication for remote access. Keep it on localhost and run the Tokios connector next to it instead: the connector dials out to https://api.tokios.com, and your tools, teammates, or agents call one authenticated endpoint from anywhere.

Last verified: 2026-10-14. Lemonade Server is actively developed — check lemonade-server.ai for the latest release.

AMD NPU support. Lemonade Server is the only local LLM server that accelerates inference on AMD Ryzen AI NPUs (Ryzen AI 300/400 series). It also auto-detects Vulkan, ROCm, CUDA, and Metal backends, so it works across AMD, NVIDIA, and Apple Silicon hardware without manual configuration.

What is Lemonade Server

Lemonade Server is an open-source local LLM server backed by AMD. It exposes an OpenAI-compatible API at http://localhost:13305/v1 and supports multiple model formats (GGUF, ONNX, FLM) across multiple backends:

AMD Ryzen 7000/8000/200 series — GPU acceleration via Vulkan (llama.cpp backend)
AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ (Strix Halo) — ROCm with vLLM or llama.cpp
AMD Ryzen AI 300/400 series — NPU acceleration via ONNX Runtime GenAI (hybrid NPU+iGPU execution)
NVIDIA GPUs — CUDA acceleration
Apple Silicon — Metal backend

Lemonade Server auto-detects your hardware and selects the best backend. You can also override the backend manually if needed.

Why not just bind Lemonade Server to 0.0.0.0?

Binding Lemonade Server to all interfaces (0.0.0.0) makes it reachable from your network, but Lemonade Server doesn’t ship built-in authentication for remote callers — anyone who can reach port 13305 can call the API. If your ISP uses CGNAT, you don’t have a stable public IP to forward to in the first place. Tokios adds scoped sk-tok-… API keys without opening an inbound port.

Why not use Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel?

Tailscale solves personal access well — your own devices join a private mesh network and can reach each other securely. The catch is for anything beyond personal use: teammates or SaaS clients that need to call your model have to join your tailnet first, which doesn’t fit a public API key model. Cloudflare Tunnel routes traffic through Cloudflare’s edge with no inbound port required, but by default Cloudflare buffers responses rather than streaming them unless the response carries a text/event-stream content-type header, and proxied requests are subject to Cloudflare’s proxy timeouts (around 100 seconds on the free tier) — long generations can get cut off mid-stream.

None of this is a knock on these tools — they’re solving a different problem (device mesh networking, edge proxying). Tokios is purpose-built for one thing: turning a local model endpoint into an authenticated API you can call from anywhere.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

Lemonade Server installed — see How to install Lemonade Server below
A model downloaded — use lemonade pull <model> to download a model
Tokios connector — you’ll install this during setup

How to install Lemonade Server

Lemonade Server provides installers for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Docker. As of v10.1, the CLI command is lemonade (the old lemonade-server CLI is deprecated).

Download the MSI installer from the [Lemonade Server releases page](https://github.com/lemonade-sdk/lemonade/releases) and run it. The `lemond` service auto-starts on install.

sudo snap install lemonade-server

sudo apt update
sudo apt install lemonade-server

Download the macOS installer from the [Lemonade Server releases page](https://github.com/lemonade-sdk/lemonade/releases).

docker run -p 13305:13305 lemonade-sdk/lemonade-server

After installation, verify Lemonade Server is running:

lemonade status

You should see the server status and detected backend (Vulkan, ROCm, CUDA, Metal, or NPU).

How to serve a model with Lemonade Server

Download and serve a model in 2 commands:

# Download a model
lemonade pull Qwen3-0.6B-GGUF

# Serve the model
lemonade run Qwen3-0.6B-GGUF

Lemonade Server auto-detects your hardware and selects the best backend. The model is now serving at http://localhost:13305/v1.

NPU acceleration on AMD Ryzen AI. If you have an AMD Ryzen AI 300/400 series processor, Lemonade Server can use the NPU for inference. Pull an ONNX model optimized for NPU execution:

lemonade pull Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-NPU
lemonade run Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-NPU

NPU models use hybrid NPU+iGPU execution and are identified by the -NPU suffix.

Common Lemonade Server CLI commands

Command	Description
`lemonade pull <model>`	Download a model
`lemonade run <model>`	Serve a model
`lemonade run <model> --ctx-size 8192`	Serve with custom context size
`lemonade list`	List available models
`lemonade list --downloaded`	List downloaded models
`lemonade status`	Check server status and detected backend
`lemonade status --json`	Check status in JSON format
`lemonade bench <model>`	Benchmark a model

The outbound-only way

Run Lemonade Server locally, as usual

Keep Lemonade Server on 127.0.0.1 — don’t bind it wider than loopback. Pull and run your model:

lemonade pull Qwen3-0.6B-GGUF
lemonade run Qwen3-0.6B-GGUF

Leave it listening on the default http://127.0.0.1:13305.

Pair the Tokios connector

Sign in at tokios.com/console, open the Setup tab, and click Start pairing. Tokios shows a one-time claim code like TKS-XXXX-XXXX, valid for about 15 minutes.On the machine running Lemonade Server, run the install one-liner for your OS:

Windows

irm https://tokios.com/downloads/install/windows | iex; tokios-install -Code 'TKS-XXXX-XXXX'

macOS

curl -fsSL https://tokios.com/downloads/install/macos | sh -s -- --code TKS-XXXX-XXXX

Linux

curl -fsSL https://tokios.com/downloads/install/linux | sh -s -- --code TKS-XXXX-XXXX

Already have tokios-connector installed? Pass the code directly instead:

tokios-connector TKS-XXXX-XXXX

Back in the console, approve the device on the Setup or Connectors tab. The connector’s token is delivered over the tunnel once approved — you never see it on screen or paste it into a file.

Point the connector at Lemonade Server's /v1 API

Lemonade Server exposes an OpenAI-compatible surface at /v1, and that’s what Tokios talks to. For the basic single-model path, the console’s Setup wizard uses http://127.0.0.1:13305/v1 as the upstream automatically. If you’re serving multiple models through a tokios-connector.json config, set the upstream BaseUrl explicitly:

{
  "Upstream": {
    "BaseUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:13305/v1"
  }
}

See Connector config for the full multi-model file format.

In the Models tab, register the Lemonade Server model and choose a public name — for example, qwen3-tunnel. That public name, not Lemonade’s local model id, is what clients send in the model field.

Create an API key

In the Keys tab, click Create key. Optionally scope it to specific deployments with model-name patterns (comma-separated globs, * for all). Copy the sk-tok-… key now — it’s shown only once.

Use it from anywhere

Once you have a deployment name and an API key, any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible client can reach your Lemonade Server model — from another machine, a teammate’s laptop, or a hosted agent.

curl https://api.tokios.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-tok-YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "qwen3-tunnel",
    "stream": true,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.tokios.com/v1",
    api_key="sk-tok-YOUR_KEY",
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3-tunnel",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
    stream=True,
)

for chunk in response:
    print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="")

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.tokios.com
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-tok-YOUR_KEY
claude --model qwen3-tunnel

The model field is always your registered deployment name (qwen3-tunnel above), never Lemonade’s local model id. See Use Claude Code for persisting the environment variables across sessions.

What is AMD NPU support

AMD Ryzen AI 300/400 series processors include a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for AI workloads. Lemonade Server is the only local LLM server that accelerates inference on the AMD NPU using hybrid NPU+iGPU execution.

How NPU acceleration works

Model format: NPU-optimized models use ONNX format (identified by the -NPU suffix, e.g., Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-NPU)
Execution: Lemonade Server splits inference between the NPU and iGPU using OnnxRuntime GenAI
Backend: The NPU backend is automatic — Lemonade Server detects your Ryzen AI processor and selects NPU execution when you run an NPU-optimized model
Performance: NPU acceleration offloads work from the CPU and GPU, reducing power consumption and freeing resources for other tasks

Which AMD processors support NPU inference

Processor series	NPU support	Backend
AMD Ryzen AI 300 series (Strix Point)	Yes	NPU via ONNX
AMD Ryzen AI 400 series	Yes	NPU via ONNX
AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ (Strix Halo)	No NPU, but powerful iGPU	ROCm/vLLM or Vulkan
AMD Ryzen 7000/8000 series	No NPU	Vulkan (llama.cpp)

NPU support requires AMD Ryzen AI Software drivers. Lemonade Server bundles the necessary runtime, but make sure your system has the latest AMD Adrenalin drivers installed.

Lemonade Server vs other backends

Lemonade Server is one of several backends Tokios supports. Here’s how it compares:

Feature	Lemonade Server	Ollama	llama.cpp	vLLM
AMD NPU support	Yes (Ryzen AI 300/400)	No	No	No
Auto-detect backend	Yes (Vulkan/ROCm/CUDA/Metal)	Manual	Manual	Manual
Setup complexity	Low (installer)	Low (one command)	Medium (build)	High (Python GPU server)
Model formats	GGUF, ONNX, FLM	GGUF	GGUF	Hugging Face
Best for	AMD hardware; cross-platform	Beginners; quickest start	Hands-on GGUF serving	High-throughput GPU serving

Lemonade Server is a great choice if you have AMD hardware (especially Ryzen AI with NPU) or want a cross-platform server that auto-detects your backend. If you just want the quickest start on any hardware, Ollama is still the easiest.

FAQ

What port does Lemonade Server use?

Lemonade Server listens on port 13305 by default, bound to 127.0.0.1 (localhost only). The OpenAI-compatible API is at http://localhost:13305/v1. You can verify Lemonade Server is running with lemonade status or curl http://localhost:13305/v1/models.

How do I know which backend Lemonade Server is using?

Run lemonade status to see the detected backend (Vulkan, ROCm, CUDA, Metal, or NPU). Lemonade Server auto-detects your hardware and selects the best backend. You can also use lemonade status --json for machine-readable output.

Does Lemonade Server support AMD NPU?

Yes. Lemonade Server is the only local LLM server that accelerates inference on AMD Ryzen AI 300/400 series NPUs. Pull an NPU-optimized model with lemonade pull <model>-NPU and run it with lemonade run <model>-NPU. The NPU backend uses hybrid NPU+iGPU execution via OnnxRuntime GenAI.

Can I use Lemonade Server with NVIDIA GPUs?

Yes. Lemonade Server auto-detects NVIDIA GPUs and uses the CUDA backend. It works on any hardware that supports Vulkan, ROCm, CUDA, or Metal — AMD, NVIDIA, and Apple Silicon are all supported.

How do I expose Lemonade Server to my network?

Don’t expose Lemonade Server directly — use Tokios instead. Tokios adds authenticated remote access without opening an inbound port. See the setup steps above for the full walkthrough.

Does streaming work?

Yes. Set "stream": true and Tokios returns standard server-sent events (SSE) in OpenAI or Anthropic format, depending on which API surface you called.

Can I expose more than 1 Lemonade Server model?

Yes. Register additional deployments in the Models tab, or use a tokios-connector.json config file to define multiple upstreams and routes for a single connector. See Connector config.

How do I update Lemonade Server?

On Linux, run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade lemonade-server (APT) or sudo snap refresh lemonade-server (Snap). On Windows, download the latest MSI installer from the releases page.

What model architectures does the NPU support?

The NPU supports specific model architectures optimized for ONNX execution. Run lemonade list to see available NPU models (identified by the -NPU suffix). Not all models are NPU-compatible — GGUF models run on the GPU/CPU backend instead. See the Lemonade FAQ for the full list of NPU-supported architectures.

Your model never leaves your machine — your endpoint works everywhere

Lemonade Server keeps doing exactly what it does today, on localhost, with no inbound ports and no exposed API. The connector only dials out. Everything past that — auth, routing, streaming — is one endpoint you can call from any machine, teammate, or agent you choose to give a key to.

Quickstart

Pair a connector and register your first model end to end.

API keys

Create, scope, and rotate sk-tok-… keys for teammates and agents.

Strix Halo setup

Turn your AMD Strix Halo box into a model endpoint with Lemonade Server.

Supported backends

See all backends Tokios supports — Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM, LM Studio, and more.

Hardware & fit

Serve & connect your runtime

Connect a client or app

Compare

Lemonade Server remote access — AMD NPU and GPU

What is Lemonade Server

Prerequisites

How to install Lemonade Server

How to serve a model with Lemonade Server

Common Lemonade Server CLI commands

The outbound-only way

Use it from anywhere

What is AMD NPU support

How NPU acceleration works

Which AMD processors support NPU inference

Lemonade Server vs other backends

FAQ

Your model never leaves your machine — your endpoint works everywhere

Quickstart

API keys

Strix Halo setup

Supported backends

Sources

​What is Lemonade Server

​Prerequisites

​How to install Lemonade Server

​How to serve a model with Lemonade Server

​Common Lemonade Server CLI commands

​The outbound-only way

​Use it from anywhere

​What is AMD NPU support

​How NPU acceleration works

​Which AMD processors support NPU inference

​Lemonade Server vs other backends

​FAQ

​Your model never leaves your machine — your endpoint works everywhere

Quickstart

API keys

Strix Halo setup

Supported backends

​Sources

What is Lemonade Server

Prerequisites

How to install Lemonade Server

How to serve a model with Lemonade Server

Common Lemonade Server CLI commands

The outbound-only way

Use it from anywhere

What is AMD NPU support

How NPU acceleration works

Which AMD processors support NPU inference

Lemonade Server vs other backends

FAQ

Your model never leaves your machine — your endpoint works everywhere

Sources