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{/* SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved. SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 */}

Engine Settings in NVIDIA Personal AI Router

Open a device's Ollama or LM Studio row and expand Settings. Edit the server port, proxy port and engine arguments, then select the green Apply button. A paired device that supports settings can be edited from another device in the cluster.

PAIR fixes the executable, lifecycle commands and loopback address. Unsupported vendor options can fail at startup.

For installing, starting and updating engines, refer to Managing engines.

Argument notation

The text contains engine arguments and optional leading environment assignments. PAIR supplies the executable and startup subcommand. Leave the text empty to use managed defaults. Tokens are passed directly to the engine, using the same notation on every operating system.

  • Spaces, tabs and line breaks separate unquoted tokens.
  • Single quotes enclose literal text. Double quotes enclose literal text with two escapes, \" and \\; any other backslash stays literal, so a Windows path such as C:\new\tools needs no doubling.
  • A quoted and an unquoted part can form one token, as in --name="two words". An empty quoted string is an empty argument.
  • Nothing is expanded: $HOME, %USERPROFILE%, {port} and ~ are literal, and there are no comments, pipelines, redirects or command substitution. Unquoted |, &, ;, <, >, a backtick or $( is rejected — quote them when the engine really wants that character.
  • At most 16 KiB and 256 tokens, valid UTF-8.

Environment assignments go first, followed by engine arguments:

OLLAMA_ORIGINS="https://example.com"
--port 1235 --bind 127.0.0.1

Environment variables

Environment assignments are saved and passed literally to the engine on every launch. PAIR does not maintain a list of supported variables or validate their engine-specific values. Editing or removing one takes effect at the next launch.

Managed CORS settings, including LM Studio's --cors switch, can only be changed on the device running the engine. A paired device can preserve an existing CORS policy while changing other settings, but cannot enable, disable or replace it. Other environment assignments can also be edited from a paired device.

Origin lists need a scheme and a specific host, so bare localhost and * are rejected, including wildcards hidden inside extra quotes. Wildcard subdomains such as https://*.example.com and ports such as http://localhost:* are supported. List the origins you want to allow. This is how you give a web page access to your models: PAIR's local endpoints add no permissive default of their own, so a browser reaches a model through PAIR only where the engine would have allowed it directly. For a request that spans the cluster, every engine that answers has to allow the origin.

An engine does not need a CORS launch option to work with PAIR. The proxy follows the engine's HTTP responses regardless of how its CORS policy is configured. If the engine grants no CORS permission, PAIR does not add permission for it.

Startup failures include a bounded excerpt of the engine’s own output. PAIR redacts supplied values by exact match, but an engine may transform or encode them. Do not put secrets in launch values.

Ports and validation

PAIR understands only the networking controls needed to keep engine and proxy configuration consistent:

Engine Server port Loopback bind Browser access
Ollama OLLAMA_HOST=127.0.0.1:<port> The host in OLLAMA_HOST OLLAMA_ORIGINS
LM Studio --port, -p --bind, LMS_SERVER_HOST --cors

For LM Studio, --port 1235, --port=1235, -p 1235, -p1235 and -p=1235 all synchronize the same server-port field. Conflicting repetitions and invalid ports are rejected. Write managed short options separately; bundles containing them are ambiguous and rejected. CORS switches do not take =true or =false: add or remove the switch locally. Origin lists are normalized before validation; conflicting repeated lists are rejected. Other vendor options remain opaque.

Changing the server-port field updates the port in the command. Editing the command's port updates the numeric field. If both are edited before validation finishes, the numeric field takes precedence. The server and proxy must use different ports; a collision opens an error dialog explaining which port collides. Invalid settings and failed saves also open an error dialog.

Apply validates the complete change. Confirmation is requested only when a running engine needs to restart. Progress appears as a spinner inside Apply. A running engine restarts for launch/server changes; changing only the proxy port leaves the engine running. Stopped engines remain stopped. Saved settings survive restart.

Concurrent edits

Changes from another device update a clean editor. An unfinished draft stays intact; applying a stale draft opens an error dialog. Reload saved settings deliberately discards that draft. Failed starts retain the saved settings for correction and show one error dialog. Validation on leaving a field quietly synchronizes ports; errors appear only when Apply is selected, without duplicate text below the command.

Offline, unpaired or older devices cannot be edited. A process started outside PAIR may require stopping it in its own application before changing its launch. The displayed arguments describe a future PAIR launch, not an external process's original arguments.