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SSH managers on Linux? (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Curious what folks are using to organise their remote connections? I liked WinSSHTerm and have tried replacing it with Remote Desktop Manager, but it seems a bit broken (fonts look terrible in a terminal, sftp doesn't work, RDP sort of works, but it's not great).

RDP is not a must. Folders, ssh, key auth, sftp and scp are the main things I'm looking for. Currently considering Remmina but though I would check if ppl have strong views on this topic before trying the next app.

I'm using cinnamon with mint 22.

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[–] BrilliantantTurd4361 3 points 55 minutes ago

The reason you are having trouble finding a replacement is because thats not really how the linux world approaches things.

Learn the terminal, scp, ssh (esp key auth if you havent), sshfs, tmux, vim or emacs and you will find you are incredibly effective at modern admin tasks. If you havent already, look into something like saltstack or ansible to make your life even easier.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

XPipe is what I use, supports syncing via git, SSH, sftp, RDP, vnc, etc.. And can manage docker containers too. It also has scripts you can define that automatically work on any SSH connection.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

I just use ~/.ssh/config

e.g.

Host website
    Hostname some.hostname.foo
    User bob
    Port 1500
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

This is the way. Even if you have a lot, it's not hard to pull up a list of options;

❯ cat ~/.ssh/config | grep 'Host ' | awk '{print $2}'

Or you can make it interactive;

❯ ssh $(cat ~/.ssh/config | grep 'Host ' | awk '{print $2}' | fzf)

ez pz

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago

And most secondary apps, e.g. git and sshfs, even Gigolo, recognize these aliases. It's the best.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Not a GUI, but I keep my ~/.ssh/config clean by splitting my configs into folders, and including them in the main ~/.ssh/config.

I have the folder, ~/.ssh/config.d/, and here's what it looks like:

~/.ssh/config.d
.
├── work
│   ├── dev.config
│   ├── staging.config
│   └── prod.config
└── server
    ├── development.config
    ├── containers.config
    ├── home.config
    ├── pis.config
    └── server.config

Then my ~/.ssh/config looks like this:

Include config.d/work/*
Include config.d/server/*
Include config.d/other/*
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Oh well that's just sexy. Never knew ssh config recognized Include.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Cool, I did it with my git config a couple weeks ago, I didn't know you could do it with ssh too.

for those interested:

[include]
path = ~/.config/git/shared.ini
path = ~/.config/git/dev-machine.ini
path = ~/.config/git/aliases.ini
path = ~/.config/git/self.ini
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Take a look at PortX. Just installed it today in Windows and Fedora 42. I have a Synchthing server where I store a Veracrypt vault with the public keys.

Remmina is great but no Windows option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

That looks pretty good, cheers. Another comment mentioned Tabby, also cross platform.

Both PortX and Tabby seem a whole lot nicer than winsshterm. Shout out to guacamole for a dockerised jump sever solution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

How about XPipe?

https://xpipe.io/

It can even auto-configure itself by parsing out your ~/.ssh/config so you can keep everything defined there for easy CLI access but also use the GUI when desired.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I will check this out - thank you.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

ssh config? Not sure what you're looking for. Like a list of preconfigured connections?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

A graphical interface to store and sort the remote connections. I have 20+ remote systems I need to maintain and apps like this provide tabbed experience like a browser to connect to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I have 20+ remote systems I need to maintain and apps like this provide tabbed experience like a browser to connect to them.

I've found that if you're using ssh then taking your hands off the keyboard to grab a mouse just to click a different tab is slow and annoying.

I use a terminal multiplexer, tmux, and just keep different sessions open for each server that I need to connect to.

leader = CTRL+b (you can change this but this is the default)

leader s - Open session manager
leader c - Open new window in the session
leader 0-9 - Swap to Window 0-9
leader % - Split screen vertically
leader left/right arrow, move between split screens
leader z - full screen the active screen
leader d - disconnect from the tmux session
etc

tmux -a to re-connect to the tmux session

There's a ton of hotkeys and plugins that can handle essentially anything you'd like to do. Once you learn the few hotkeys (print a cheatsheet and force yourself to use the hotkeys).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Tmux is awesome. We've somehow fallen into using screen at work, I think just old habits. So yes, on the other side of the ssh connections there's usually a series of screen sessions for us to join. Should try to move onto tmux - it is nicer.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago (7 children)

If you're dead set on a GUI for this, I guess you'd be in the minority which is why you're probably not finding a lot out there.

I think Remmina does this though, and it's solid as an RDP client otherwise.

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[–] ignoble_stigmas 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You can have multiple ssh config files, with includes, to keep the configurations structured and organized, and not one long dump file, then use any gui terminal app that supports tabs. And tab+auto complete hostnames from the said configs. Some apps also support something like multiple profiles, so you can put there your ssh command, if you want some gui lists. I follow this approach and it is very portable, as the only thing I need to care about are my config files.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

I dunno. The folders keep things sorted between work and home. And within work each client. And within there the prod and staging systems are separated. I guess I could make separate scripts for each host but that's kind of what I want the manager for. Also not sure how this covers the right click, copy files workflow of scp or sftp.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Both: ssh config AND your fancy gui. Because most secondary and tertiary apps recognize the ssh config aliases. I know first hand Gigolo does.

Or your file manager: enter sth like sftp://user@host_alias/home/user - after success, create a bookmark.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

I think I'm starting to see this workflow. I can use git to manage the files, then use bitwarden secrets for the keys if I want them backed up too. And once all the shortcuts are setup it can be made portable by syncing to another place with syncthing. Have to setup each link for each host with each app separately.

Still think it seems like manually managing bookmarks using vim and storing them outside of the web browser.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Muon.

Does SSH, SFTP and other stuff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I really like Asbru and have been using it for a couple of years. I used Remmina for a little while but never liked its look and feel.

Not too much active development has been going on lately, sadly, but the latest version still works very well.

https://www.asbru-cm.net/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

This looks great - thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

I would say, like many others, Remmina.

Putty also has a Linux version, so you can use that as well. Its session management is a bit clunky, but it works and it offers some fairly good functionalities.

But ssh is first and foremost a command line tool. As others have said, invest some time to learn its commands and configuration files.

[–] Valon_Blue 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Use Tabby. It is, by far, the closest to a Linux terminal experience. Likely because it's cross platform. I say this as someone that absolutely despises Windows terminal experiences.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

tabby looks neat. already has an mcp plugin - impressive.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I'll be watching this discussion, as I'm currently using Remmina. It meet the bare minimum of SSH & RDP, but it doesn't have a clear method to organize connections and instead uses a big list. I also find the interface a tad counterintuitive, so maybe I'm just using it wrong.

It also seems to have a bug where it launches twice whenever I start my computer. So I have to close one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Portx, tabby and guacamole are my contenders so far. Guac would be needed for the graphical stuff - it's sort of like a jump server running in a docker container that you would vpn into I guess? Neat concept.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

SecureCRT. Expensive but my work paid for it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

I bought it personally but I would hardly call it expensive. The three year license is like ~67 USD a year for both CRT and FX.

I love it mainly because it's multi-platform but I wish it had more features. They boast their great integration with VShell but it would be much better if they just had better support for OpenSSH, like being able to push ssh keys to a host.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

I just install my keys as needed to the machines and then configure aliases for quick connections. For file transfer with SFTP I'm using Filezilla because its queuing functionality and site management are nice.

I think for what you are looking for, both puTTY and Remmina should be capable as well as the other options suggested here

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Uh, I just type ssh or rsync into the terminal and that's it. It's a manageable amount of computers/servers I connect to, so I can remeber their names. Regular ssh stores all the keys or custom ports / IPs in its config. What's the advantage of using some manager?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

It is $120 per year for a single user. And to be fair I didn't specify a budget.

Curious though if you use terminus and think that it's worth it? It looks slick but it costs more than my IDE.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

The free tier is pretty decent as is (at least I think there’s a free tier, unless I was grandfathered in or something). I did pay the $120 and it is pretty handy for mobile usage. The iOS app is great. Although, my poor impulse control is not a good measure of value

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I use Apache Guacamole, which works great for just about any kind of remote access and has a dead simple to use Docker Container.

It supports folders, copy/paste, uploading/downloading files, multiple open connections at once, and alternative mouse modes for touch screens. Best of all, it's completely free and open source.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

This looks seriously impressive - and with a docker. Nice. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I currently run it with Keycloak for Auth and previously had it behind a Nginx Proxy Manager reverse proxy, but have since switched to using a Cloudflare tunnel.

It works great and allows me to provision limited and controlled access over various game servers to admins of those servers. They can access what they need and nothing more, and only on the servers that they have been granted access.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Rustdesk? Guacamole?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

If youre on windows, mremoteng is very comprehensive: https://mremoteng.org/

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