January 14, 2026
Who gave the bot a blowtorch?
Ask HN: How do you safely give LLMs SSH/DB access?
AI intern poking your servers? Crowd screams: sandbox it, lock it, or never trust
TLDR: A dev wants to let an AI helper run safe server and database commands, but commenters push back. Most say sandbox it with read‑only accounts and strict permissions, while the hottest take says never grant real access—highlighting the tension between saving time and avoiding disaster.
A developer wants to let a chatbot do more than copy‑paste commands: think “AI intern” with limited powers over servers (SSH is the secure remote control) and databases. But the Hacker News crowd turned this into a full‑on custody battle. One camp says give the bot a strict chore list—only read logs and run safe queries—then block the dangerous stuff. They even dropped a settings guide for allow/deny lists and suggested using simple tools for file‑based databases like SQLite. Another camp went full bunker mode: treat the bot like a malicious human. That means separate user accounts, tight file permissions, and database logins that can only read specific tables. Postgres fans flexed: “robust permissions” beat playing regex babysitter (regex = text rules that try to filter commands) every time. Then came the spicy nihilists: never give it real power because “anything it can mess up, it will.” Container lovers chimed in with a meme: put the bot in a digital playpen and only let it touch things you’re “happy obliterating.” The vibe? A tug‑of‑war between convenience and doomsday prep, with jokes about “AI interns with blowtorches” and whether your database needs baby gates.
Key Points
- •The author uses Claude Code for DevOps tasks such as SSH access, log grepping, file inspection, and database querying.
- •Despite time savings, every command needs manual review, which is becoming tedious.
- •They propose granting limited autonomy via a list of pre-approved commands or actions over SSH.
- •Allowed examples: ls, grep, cat, tail; disallowed examples: rm, mv, chmod.
- •For databases, they suggest allowing SELECT queries and disallowing INSERT, DELETE, DROP, and TRUNCATE to prevent changes.