Is Termius the only cross platform emulator that includes Android as one of the platforms? It is quite good, in my limited experience, but too expensive for a hobbiest. I like that I can use my Linux desktop, MacOS laptop, and Android tablet/phone and the UX is the same across them all. The sync (trial for free, then charge) is great. But I’d be fine if it was something where I could DIY a sync method with something like Syncthing.
I’m aware of the likes of Alacritty, but no mobile app. And of course Termux is great for mobile, but no desktop versions.
It all boils down to wanting some sort of sync function either DIY or otherwise that includes hosts and SSH keys and while not as important, I do like the consistent UX between platforms. Is there something else to consider?
Sync for hosts and SSH keys seems like a really weird feature to put into a terminal emulator (except maybe on Android with its very restrictive security model) considering that those have literally nothing to do with the job a terminal emulator does.
Hmm, I’m probably explaining myself poorly. What I’m currently using Termius for is to connect to my local servers as well as two VPS I rent. In order to either make quick changes, or troubleshoot. Having that sync between Termius instances on my various devices with Alias, IP, and SSH key so I can connect with a single tap/click is what I’m after. If possible. Like I said, I’m still pretty new to this in general. I’ve run PiHole on a Pi3b for years, but that was it until Spring of this year when I started self hosting in earnest and learning Linux, etc. So I apologize if I used the wrong verbiage. Hopefully this explains it better?
Oh, I wasn’t talking about the phrasing, just the fact that SSH Keys and hosts tend to be just files used by one of hundreds of programs a terminal emulator displays, not really different from having your terminal emulator sync the RSS-Feeds in your terminal RSS reader or the bookmarked folders in your terminal file manager.
It seems you are talking about some sort of bookmark system to open a terminal and start SSH for a specific host directly though?
Yes I suppose that is right. I hadnt considered that the hosts would also be stored locally. Termius’ home screen has my saved hosts arranged by alias and I tap on whichever server I want and it connects without password because I already set up ssh keys. And if I add a new host it syncs with the other instances of the app on my tablet, phone, laptop, and desktop. In fact, it’s so handy that I often reach for my android tablet with attached keyboard to fiddle with the servers.
Why can’t you use native clients under Windows, Mac and Linux then? Use what your platform offers for the best experience. I do this and sync my ssh config file with Syncthing.
In iOS we can’t have Syncthing so I’ve to use https://panic.com/prompt/ and live with it.
That is not something I had considered. That the config files are universal. So that helps quite a bit. I’ll have to look into setting that up. I read elsewhere that some check theirs into github and sync from there.
SSH config is versatile, what I do is keep a simple
.ssh/configfile like this in every machine that isn’t synced:Host * IdentitiesOnly no AddKeysToAgent yes IdentityFile "machinexyz-key-file" Include "~/Preferences/ssh/config"This file will simply configure it to use the IdentityFile of this machine and import another file that has the actual host definitions at
~/Preferences/ssh/config- that is the one I sync with Syncthing. This gives a nice way to customize settings for each machine (key path and whatnot) while keeping a global file with in sync between all of them.For reference here is
~/Preferences/ssh/config:Host * IdentitiesOnly no AddKeysToAgent yes host server1 hostname x.x.x.x user xxxxx port 1111 host server2 hostname x.x.x.x user xxxxx port 2222Oh that’s very helpful, thank you.
I thought KDE was working on some cross platform programs, but I can’t recall the name of the project or the tools, they had a file manager, and a few other things. I thought it included a basic terminal emulator.
I may be thinking of the following project.
it shows screen shots for ‘station’ on mobile, but I can’t find a .APK for it.
That’s because there isn’t an APK, it’s designed to work with Plasma Mobile, which uses AppImages
but they have an APK for the file manager ‘index’. so that’s what’s confused me.
Ah yeah. Looking back, I see that almost all of them are listed as compatible with android. Station and Clip appear to be the only ones that aren’t.
Interesting. I’ll keep an eye on that project. Thanks!
