SSH, port forwarding, snippets and SFTP

A full SSH client inside Halo. Hosts and keys are vault items, so they are encrypted and synced like your passwords.

Add a host

1. Open Hosts (halo://hosts) and choose New host.
2. Enter a label, the address and port, and the username.
3. Choose Password or Key authentication. Add the host to a group, such as Production, to keep the grid tidy.

To connect without saving, type user@host or user@host:port in the search box at the top of Hosts and press Enter.

Keychain

Open the Keychain tab to generate an ed25519 key or import an existing private key (with its passphrase, if it has one). Copy the public key to add it to a server's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. Keys are stored in your encrypted vault and synced.

Terminal tabs

Click a host to open a terminal tab. Halo shows the connection steps and logs while it connects, then a full terminal that supports resizing, paste and reconnect. Terminal tabs stay connected in the background while you browse, and the address bar shows ssh user@host.

Known hosts

The first time you connect, Halo saves the server's host key fingerprint. If the key changes later, Halo refuses to connect and shows a warning until you explicitly trust the new key. Check with the server's administrator before you do.

Port forwarding

Each host can have forwarding rules of three kinds:

• Local (like ssh -L): a port on your computer reaches a host and port through the server.
• Remote (like ssh -R): a port on the server reaches a host and port on your side.
• Dynamic (like ssh -D): a SOCKS proxy on your computer that sends traffic through the server.

Each rule opens its own SSH connection with the host's saved credentials and checks the saved host key.

Snippets

Save commands you run often and paste them into any terminal tab with ⇧ ⌘ S (Ctrl Shift S on Windows). Write {{name}} where Halo should ask for a value before the command runs, for example:

sudo systemctl restart {{service}}

SFTP

Open the SFTP file browser for a host to browse folders, upload and download files, rename items and create or remove folders. Like forwarding, it uses its own connection with the host's saved credentials and host key. Downloaded files are the only thing written to disk.

What is stored where

Hosts, keys, forwarding rules and snippets are vault items: encrypted on your device and synced. Credentials are handed to the SSH client for one connection and are not written to disk by it.