Celeste AI Agent: Webserver, USB Drive & SMB Sharing Setup

The Setup: What We Built Today

Celeste runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB RAM, Debian Bookworm) as the brain of a self-hosted AI agent ecosystem. Today's mission was to bridge storage and network access — enabling the Pi's USB external drives to be served via a local webserver and shared to our main desktop using SMB (Server Message Block). The result: centralized file access from anywhere on the network, with Celeste orchestrating the data flow.

Hardware & Current State

Component	Specification
Board	Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5
RAM	8GB
OS	Debian Bookworm 64-bit (Linux 6.1.21)
Primary Storage	32GB microSD (upgrading to 512GB A2)
External Drive 1	58GB USB (sethdisk1 — npm global, dev files)
External Drive 2	3.7TB USB (sethstudio2 — media, backups)
Webserver	Apache2 with PHP (LAMP stack)
File Sharing	Samba (SMB/CIFS)
OpenClaw	v2026.4.10 (177+ skills)
AI Backend	Kimi K2.5 (Moonshot AI) primary, Ollama fallback

Part 1: Webserver Storage Access

Why This Matters

Before today, the USB drives were accessible only via SSH or physical file system access. Now they're served via HTTP — Celeste can fetch files, generate content, and make them immediately available to web clients. This is essential for the AI agent's workflow: read source files → process → output to web-accessible directory → client retrieves.

Configuration Steps

1. Create mount points for both USB drives:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/storage/sethdisk1
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/storage/sethstudio2

2. Mount the USB drives (use your actual device names):

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /var/www/html/storage/sethdisk1
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /var/www/html/storage/sethstudio2

3. Make mounts permanent in /etc/fstab:

/dev/sda1 /var/www/html/storage/sethdisk1 ext4 defaults,nofail 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /var/www/html/storage/sethstudio2 ext4 defaults,nofail 0 0

4. Fix permissions so Apache can read the drives:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/storage
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/storage

5. Restart Apache to pick up the new directories:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Verification

Test it from the Pi or your desktop browser:

curl http://192.168.1.xxx/storage/sethdisk1/
curl http://192.168.1.xxx/storage/sethstudio2/

You should see directory listings or file downloads depending on your Apache config. Success: The USB drives are now web-accessible.

Part 2: SMB Network Share Setup

Why This Matters

The webserver makes files accessible via HTTP URLs, but for daily workflow, SMB (Samba) lets your desktop see the Pi's drives as a network folder — you can drag-and-drop, edit files directly, and manage them just like local storage. This is the bridge between Celeste's processing and your main machine.

Install Samba

sudo apt update
sudo apt install samba samba-common-bin -y

Configure Samba for the Storage Directories

Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and add this at the end:

[sethdisk1]
    comment = Celeste Dev Storage (sethdisk1)
    path = /var/www/html/storage/sethdisk1
    browseable = yes
    read only = no
    guest ok = no
    valid users = @sambagroup
    create mask = 0755
    directory mask = 0755

[sethstudio2]
    comment = Celeste Media & Backups (sethstudio2)
    path = /var/www/html/storage/sethstudio2
    browseable = yes
    read only = no
    guest ok = no
    valid users = @sambagroup
    create mask = 0755
    directory mask = 0755

Set Up SMB User & Permissions

1. Create a Samba user (or use existing Linux user):

sudo smbpasswd -a username

2. Create a group and assign permissions:

sudo groupadd sambagroup
sudo usermod -a -G sambagroup username
sudo chown -R :sambagroup /var/www/html/storage
sudo chmod -R g+rw /var/www/html/storage

Restart Samba

sudo systemctl restart smbd
sudo systemctl restart nmbd

Connect from Your Desktop

Windows: File Explorer → Map Network Drive → \\192.168.1.xxx\sethdisk1

Mac: Finder → Go → Connect to Server → smb://192.168.1.xxx/sethdisk1

Linux:

sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.xxx/sethdisk1 /mnt/celeste-disk1 \
  -o username=your_samba_user,password=your_password,uid=1000,gid=1000

Part 3: Integration with Celeste

How Celeste Uses This Setup

The OpenClaw agent (Celeste) now has access to:

• Web-accessible output directory — Skills can write processed files to /var/www/html/storage and generate shareable URLs for downloads or web previews.
• SMB input source — You can drop files into the shared folders from your desktop, and Celeste can monitor and process them automatically.
• Centralized file log — All Celeste's operations (transcripts, generated media, analysis) are stored in a central location accessible from anywhere on the network.

Example Celeste Workflow

User (Discord): "Analyze the video in /storage/sethstudio2/video.mp4"

Celeste:
1. Detects the file via SMB mount on Pi
2. Calls Whisper skill to transcribe audio
3. Calls Claude skill to summarize transcript
4. Writes results to /var/www/html/storage/outputs/
5. Returns HTTP URL to user: http://192.168.1.xxx/storage/outputs/analysis.txt

Testing & Verification

Architecture Overview

Gotchas & Solutions

Mount Points Disappear After Reboot

Fix: Make sure both drives are in /etc/fstab with nofail option. Use UUIDs instead of device names for reliability.

Permission Denied Writing to Shares

Fix: Verify that www-data user and your Samba user are both in the group with write permissions: sudo chown -R :sambagroup /var/www/html/storage && sudo chmod -R g+w /var/www/html/storage

SMB Connection Drops

Fix: Add to /etc/samba/smb.conf in the [global] section: socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_KEEPALIVE

USB Drive Not Recognized After Disconnection

Fix: Use nofail in fstab to prevent boot failures, and manually remount: sudo mount -a

Key Learnings

Command Reference

sudo lsblk                              # List all block devices to find USB drives
sudo blkid                              # Show UUID of each drive
sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/point         # Mount a drive
sudo umount /mnt/point                  # Unmount a drive
sudo mount -a                           # Re-mount all fstab entries
sudo chown -R user:group /path          # Change ownership recursively
sudo systemctl restart apache2          # Restart webserver
sudo systemctl restart smbd             # Restart Samba daemon
sudo smbclient -L \\\\192.168.1.xxx    # List Samba shares from Linux
mount.cifs                              # Check if CIFS support is installed

Resources & Links

• OpenClaw Documentation
• Raspberry Pi Official Docs
• Samba Wiki (File Sharing)
• Apache HTTP Server Documentation
• Moonshot AI (Kimi K2.5 Model)
• solarblu.net — More AI & Raspberry Pi Content