diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9a80508..340aa57 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -90,6 +90,17 @@ The format expected in `roles/common/vars/main.yml` is something like
               - etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.cloverdale
               - etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.cloverdale
 
+### Remote mode
+
+The playbooks can also be run in a traditional remote mode:
+
+    $ ansible-playbook --ask-become-pass --ask-vault-pass --inventory hosts.remote ./remote.yml
+
+At present this does _not_ make use of hostvars; this is because the playbook
+started out designed to be run against localhost and the playbook
+self-identifies the system and fetches configuration variables from
+`roles/common/vars/main.yml` based on that.
+
 ## Acknowledgment
 
 I stole a lot of knowledge from https://github.com/giuaig/ansible-raspi-config/.
diff --git a/hosts.remote b/hosts.remote
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..97f5128
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hosts.remote
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+[raspberrypi]
+cloverdale.local
+cloverleaf.local
+clovermine.local
diff --git a/remote.yml b/remote.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c764f0a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/remote.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+- hosts: raspberrypi
+  become: yes
+  become_user: root
+  become_method: sudo
+  roles:
+    - common