react-native-russh

React Native SSH and SFTP for the New Architecture, powered by russh.

The package intentionally exposes only generic SSH capabilities. Whip's WP3 QR pairing and Herdr protocols live in a separate private adapter.

flowchart TD
    W[Whip / Herdr adapter] --> R[react-native-russh]
    A[Your React Native app] --> R
    R --> S[Russh]

Requirements

• React Native 0.76 or newer with the New Architecture enabled
• Android 7.0 / API 24 or newer on ARM64 (arm64-v8a)
• iOS 16.4 or newer on ARM64 devices and Apple Silicon simulators

Intel Android emulators and Intel iOS simulators are not included in the initial release.

Install

npm install react-native-russh

For iOS, install pods after npm finishes:

cd ios && pod install

Quick start

react-native-russh verifies host keys strictly. Load an OpenSSH known_hosts entry before connecting; an unknown or changed key rejects the connection with structured details in the error message.

import SSHClient from 'react-native-russh';

SSHClient.setKnownHosts(
  'server.example ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAA...',
);

const ssh = await SSHClient.connectWithKey(
  'server.example',
  22,
  'alice',
  privateKey,
);

const output = await ssh.execute('uname -a');
const files = await ssh.sftpLs('/var/log');
ssh.disconnect();

Public capabilities

• OpenSSH known_hosts verification, including hashed hostnames
• Ed25519, RSA, and ECDSA private-key authentication supported by Russh
• Password authentication and jump hosts
• Key generation and key inspection
• Command execution and interactive PTY shells
• SSH agent forwarding for private-key sessions
• Local TCP forwarding and host-latency measurement
• SFTP listing, mutation, upload, download, cancellation, and ranged serving

No Whip, Herdr, or QR-pairing type or method is exported from the package root.

Development

From the Whip repository root:

nix develop -c cargo fmt --check \
  --manifest-path packages/react-native-russh/rust/Cargo.toml
nix develop -c cargo clippy --locked --all-targets \
  --manifest-path packages/react-native-russh/rust/Cargo.toml -- -D warnings
nix develop -c cargo test --locked \
  --manifest-path packages/react-native-russh/rust/Cargo.toml
nix develop -c bash packages/react-native-russh/rust/build-android.sh

License and provenance

The Rust/Russh transport and Whip-maintained React Native integration are licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later. The compatibility shape of SSHClient descends from the MIT-licensed react-native-ssh-sftp fork family; see PROVENANCE.md.