SSHler

A local-only web UI for browsing remote files over SFTP and accessing tmux sessions in the browser. No agent, no daemon, nothing installed on the remote host. Point it at your SSH config and go.

Why SSHler?

I have multiple machines. A workstation, a home server, a couple of VPSes. I’m constantly jumping between them; opening terminals, navigating to project directories, checking files, restarting services. The workflow is repetitive: SSH in, cd to the right place, tmux attach, do the thing, detach, switch machines, repeat.

VS Code Remote handles this if you live in VS Code. I don’t always want a full IDE; sometimes I just need a terminal in the right directory and a quick look at a file. JuiceSSH on mobile is solid but it’s Android-only and doesn’t do file browsing. There’s a gap between “full IDE” and “raw SSH” that nothing fills cleanly.

SSHler sits in that gap. One pip install, one command, browser opens, all your SSH hosts are there. Click a box, browse files, open a terminal. The terminal is tmux on the remote host bridged through WebSocket + xterm.js; persistent sessions that survive browser closes, page reloads, network hiccups.

Good fit: multi-machine workflows, mobile SSH access with a real terminal, browsing remote files without mounting filesystems, running LLM agents across multiple boxes from a single browser tab, anything where you want “quick access” without “full IDE.”

Quick Start

pip install sshler
sshler serve

Opens http://127.0.0.1:8822/app/ in your browser. Reads ~/.ssh/config automatically; every Host entry appears as a box.

Architecture

Browser (Vue 3 SPA)
  │
  ├── REST API ──→ FastAPI ──→ asyncssh ──→ SFTP (file ops)
  │
  └── WebSocket ──→ FastAPI ──→ asyncssh ──→ tmux (terminal)
                                    │
                              SSH connection pool
                              (per-box, idle timeout)

The backend is a single FastAPI process. File operations go through asyncssh’s SFTP client. Terminal sessions open tmux new -As <session> -c <dir> on the remote host and pipe stdin/stdout over WebSocket as raw bytes. The local box bypasses SSH entirely; subprocess tmux, direct filesystem access.

Features

File Browser

Vue-based file browser with preview, edit, delete, upload, and “Open Terminal Here”:

Drag & drop upload with progress indicators
Batch operations via multi-select (Shift+Click, Cmd/Ctrl+Click)
Archive support — create and extract .tar.gz and .zip from context menu
Content search — grep across remote files with clickable results
Inline rename (F2), context menus, breadcrumb navigation
File preview with CodeMirror, markdown rendering, line numbers, word wrap toggle
Git branch display in the breadcrumb bar

Terminal

WebSocket terminal backed by tmux on the remote host:

Multi-pane layouts — split horizontally, vertically, or grid
Session persistence — layout saved to localStorage, restored on reload
Per-box themes — color-code terminals by environment (prod=red, staging=green)
Command snippets — save and quick-insert frequently used commands per box or globally
Port forwarding UI — visual SSH tunnel management (local/remote) per box
Session switcher — dropdown listing active tmux sessions per box
Desktop notifications — bell and OSC 777 notify when the tab is hidden

Mobile Terminal

Touch-optimized terminal with a custom input bar for keys that are murder on mobile keyboards:

Button	Key	Purpose
Arrow keys	Navigation	Menu navigation, vim, Claude Code
Enter	Confirm	Submit commands
Tab	Autocomplete	Shell completion
Escape	Cancel	Interrupt agent turns
Ctrl+C	Kill	Stop processes (red)
Scroll mode	Ctrl+B [	tmux copy mode (orange)
PgUp/PgDn	Scroll	Navigate in copy mode
Ctrl+D	EOF	Graceful exit (teal)

14px ultra-thin header with live CPU/MEM stats. Maximum terminal real estate.

Search

Directory search with frecency-based ranking:

Local box: queries zoxide directly for instant results
Remote boxes: SQLite frecency table + SSH find for discovery
Formula: score = visit_count * exp(-0.1 * days_since_last_visit)
Command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K) with fuzzy search across all features

Security

Session cookies (httpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax) with Argon2id password hashing
CSRF protection via Origin header validation on state-changing requests
Path traversal prevention on all file operations
Rate limiting on auth endpoints with lockout
Loopback-only by default — binds to 127.0.0.1; expose through a reverse proxy with TLS

Honest Limitations

Single user — Designed for one person on localhost. Not a multi-tenant service.
In-memory sessions — Session store doesn’t survive restarts or work across multiple instances. Fine for single-process deployment.
No file sync — Browse and edit, but no bidirectional sync. Use rsync or git for that.
tmux required — Terminal sessions are tmux. No tmux on the remote host, no terminal. (It’s 2026; install tmux.)
Large directories — Virtual scrolling handles 10K+ files, but SFTP readdir on a directory with 100K entries is still slow. That’s SFTP, not sshler.

Getting Started

pip install sshler                # or: uv add sshler
sshler serve                      # opens browser automatically
sshler serve --no-browser         # headless / systemd

Python 3.12+ · tmux on remote hosts (or local for the local box).

uv run pytest                     # 232 tests (167 backend + 65 frontend)