ESSH is a terminal-based SSH workspace designed for working across multiple remote systems while keeping shell sessions available through connection interruptions. It combines host selection, persistent remote terminals and live system monitoring in a single interface.
The application uses OpenSSH to establish connections and tmux to maintain remote shell sessions. This allows users to disconnect, switch between hosts or restart the local application without necessarily losing running commands and their terminal state.
ESSH also provides configurable health dashboards. Administrators can inspect information about resource consumption, network traffic and system activity alongside an active SSH session, or switch to a larger monitoring view when investigating a problem.
The interface supports keyboard and mouse navigation, making it suitable for users who regularly move between remote shells and need to keep track of several systems.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Maintains persistent remote SSH sessions through tmux, allowing users to reconnect to an existing shell after an interruption.
- Reads host information from OpenSSH configuration files, its own configuration and a host cache.
- Supports multiple independent remote sessions, with keyboard shortcuts and mouse controls for switching between them.
- Provides session recovery that reattaches to an existing remote shell when it remains available.
- Offers terminal, side-panel, half-screen and full-screen health monitoring layouts.
- Displays host health information including processor activity, memory, storage, network interfaces, traffic and running processes.
- Allows navigation between hosts and selection of network interfaces within the monitoring dashboard.
- Supports remote tmux panes, including horizontal and vertical splits and keyboard-driven pane selection.
- Preserves the remote user’s login shell environment, including shell startup files, aliases and prompts.
- Includes configurable colour themes such as Solarized, Dracula, Nord, Ocean and Sky.
- Supports keyboard and mouse navigation, with resizable panes and selectable session tabs.
- Provides controls for reconnecting, returning to the host list and leaving sessions running in the background.
Website: github.com/matthart1983/essh
Support:
Developer: Matt Hartley
License: MIT License
ESSH is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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