SSH-X-Term

SSH-X-Term is a modern, terminal-based SSH client with a rich TUI (Text User Interface) built on Bubble Tea.

SSH-X-Term is a fully self-contained SSH client implemented entirely in Go. There are no external SSH tools or wrappers involved — all SSH, SCP, SFTP, port tunneling, packet inspection, and terminal handling is built in.

It combines SSH connection management, interactive terminals, SCP/SFTP file transfers, visual port forwarding & traffic inspection, and secure credential storage into a single, fast, cross-platform application.

Credentials can be stored securely using your local system keyring or directly in your Bitwarden vault.

✨ Highlights

• ✅ Pure Go SSH client — no ssh, no passh, no plink required
• ✅ SSH Port Forwarding & Tunnels — Local (-L), Remote (-R), and Dynamic SOCKS5 (-D)
• ✅ Visual Topology Diagrams — interactive ASCII/Unicode tunnel graph with live metrics
• ✅ Live Packet Inspector & Hex Dump — stream raw payload packets in real time with 1-click clipboard export
• ✅ Cross-platform — identical behavior and rendering on Linux, macOS, and Windows
• ✅ Built-in terminal emulator — full xterm-256color support with scrollback buffer
• ✅ SCP / SFTP Dual-Pane File Manager — seamlessly transfer files over existing sessions
• ✅ Secure Credential Storage — system keyring (Keychain, Secret Service, Credential Manager) + Bitwarden CLI
• ✅ First-class TUI — responsive, keyboard-driven, mouse-aware full-screen experience

📺 Demo & Walkthrough

🚀 Features

🔀 SSH Port Forwarding & Tunnel Manager

Manage and monitor SSH tunnels directly within the TUI without remembering complex CLI flags.

• Supported Tunnel Modes:
  • Local Port Forwarding (-L): Forward local ports to remote services (e.g. remote VNC desktop 5900 ➔ 127.0.0.1:5900, private PostgreSQL/MySQL databases, internal web dashboards, Kubernetes pods).
  • Remote Port Forwarding (-R): Expose local development servers or APIs to a remote relay server.
  • Dynamic SOCKS5 Proxy (-D): Turn your remote SSH host into a flexible SOCKS5 proxy for browsers and CLI tools.
• Port Conflict Detection: Automatically verifies local and remote port availability before binding to prevent socket collisions.
• Auto-Start Support: Flag tunnels to automatically activate whenever a host connection is initiated.
• Safe Persistent Storage: Saved directly alongside your host configuration with OpenSSH compatibility.

                       ◄  Tunnel 1 of 1: Remote VNC Desktop  ►

  ╭───────────────────── TOPOLOGY: LOCAL (Remote VNC Desktop) ───────────────────────╮
  │                                                                                  │
  │  ╭──────────────────╮              ╭──────────────────╮              ╭──────────────────╮  │
  │  │  LOCAL LISTENER  │  ══(SSH)══►  │    SSH RELAY     │  ──(TCP)──►  │  REMOTE TARGET   │  │
  │  │  127.0.0.1:5900  │              │  remote-host:22  │              │  127.0.0.1:5900  │  │
  │  │  (Your Machine)  │              │(Bastion / Server)│              │ (Target Service) │  │
  │  ╰──────────────────╯              ╰──────────────────╯              ╰──────────────────╯  │
  │                                                                                  │
  ╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
 ╭──────────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────╮
 │ STATUS: ● ACTIVE │ CONNS: 1 active  │ TRAFFIC: ▲ 14.2 KB    ▼ 84.1 KB    │ UPTIME: 08m 42s  │
 ╰──────────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────╯

🔍 Visual Topology & Live Packet Inspector

Inspect the live data stream flowing through your SSH tunnels in real time.

• Visual 2D Topology Diagram (v / g):
  • Clear box-and-arrow diagrams detailing listener, bastion gateway, and target endpoints.
  • Color-coded statuses: Neon Green (● ACTIVE), Gray (○ INACTIVE), Red (✖ ERROR).
  • Live metrics dashboard: active connection counts, directional byte counters, and uptime.
• Live Traffic Inspector (x):
  • Bidirectional stream tagging (LOCAL -> REMOTE vs REMOTE -> LOCAL) with microsecond timestamps.
  • Hex + ASCII Dump Mode: Wireshark-style 16-byte hexadecimal offsets alongside ASCII text columns.
  • ASCII Text Stream Mode (m): Clean formatted text view for HTTP, Redis, SMTP, or plain socket streams.
  • Stream Controls: Pause / Freeze live feed (f / Space), scroll history (↑/↓/PgUp/PgDn), and clear buffer (c).
• 1-Click Clipboard Export (y):
  • Instantly copy all raw captured traffic data (Hex Dump or ASCII) to the system clipboard.

  LIVE TRAFFIC INSPECTOR: Web Service Tunnel (HEX + ASCII DUMP)    [✓ COPIED TO CLIPBOARD] 
 ╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
 │  ──► [12:00:00.100] LOCAL -> REMOTE (16 bytes)                                   │
 │    00000000  47 45 54 20 2f 20 48 54  54 50 2f 31 2e 31 0d 0a  |GET / HTTP/1.1..| │
 │                                                                                  │
 │  ◄── [12:00:00.115] REMOTE -> LOCAL (17 bytes)                                   │
 │    00000000  48 54 54 50 2f 31 2e 31  20 32 30 30 20 4f 4b 0d  |HTTP/1.1 200 OK.| │
 │    00000010  0a                                                |.|                │
 ╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

⚡ Quick Connect Mode

Fast SSH access without launching the full TUI.

• sxt -l — minimal interactive connection selector
• sxt -c <connection-id> — instant connection by ID
• Start typing immediately to filter connections
• Arrow keys exit filter and navigate
• Fully interactive terminal with resize support

🖥️ Integrated SSH Terminal

• VT100 / ANSI escape sequence compliant
• Full xterm-256color support
• 10,000-line scrollback buffer
• Mouse and keyboard scrolling
• Text selection and clipboard copy
• Graceful window resize handling

📂 SCP / SFTP File Manager

• Dual-pane Local ↔ Remote interface
• Upload, download, rename, delete
• Create files and directories
• Recursive search (/)
• Uses the active authenticated SSH session

🔐 Secure Credential Management

• Local storage via system keyring
  • macOS Keychain
  • Linux Secret Service (libsecret / GNOME Keyring / KWallet)
  • Windows Credential Manager
• Bitwarden integration via Bitwarden CLI (bw)
• Passwords and private key passphrases are never stored in plaintext

⚙️ SSH Authentication

• SSH Agent (recommended for encrypted keys)
• Encrypted private keys supported via ssh-agent
• Password authentication via system keyring
• Compatible with standard OpenSSH config

🛠️ Prerequisites

Required

• Go 1.24+ (only if building from source)
• System Keyring (for local password storage)

Optional

• SSH Agent (recommended for encrypted SSH keys)
• Bitwarden CLI (bw) — for Bitwarden vault support
• tmux — open SSH sessions in new tmux windows

⚠️ SSH-X-Term 2.0+ has no external SSH dependencies. You do not need ssh, passh, plink, or PuTTY.

📥 Installation

Option 1: Install via npm (Recommended)

npm install -g ssh-x-term
sxt

Option 2: Install via Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew tap eugeniofciuvasile/tap
brew install ssh-x-term
sxt

Option 3: Build from source

git clone https://github.com/eugeniofciuvasile/ssh-x-term.git
cd ssh-x-term
go build -o sxt ./cmd/sxt

Or:

go install github.com/eugeniofciuvasile/ssh-x-term/cmd/sxt@latest

Option 4: Prebuilt Binary

Download prebuilt binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows from the GitHub Releases page.

🎮 Keybindings & Controls

Main Host View

| Key | Action | | --- | --- | | Enter | Connect to selected SSH host | | t | Open Tunnel & Port Forwarding Manager | | s | Open SCP / SFTP File Manager | | a / e / d | Add / Edit / Delete host connection | | o | Toggle tmux session window mode | | / | Filter / Search hosts | | q | Quit application |

Tunnel Manager (t)

| Key | Action | | --- | --- | | Space / Enter | Activate / Deactivate selected tunnel | | v / g | Open Visual Topology Graph & Inspector | | a / e / d | Add / Edit / Delete tunnel configuration | | Esc / q | Return to host list |

Tunnel Form (a / e)

| Key | Action | | --- | --- | | Tab / Shift+Tab | Navigate fields | | Ctrl+T | Cycle tunnel type (Local -L / Remote -R / Dynamic -D) | | Ctrl+A | Toggle Auto-start on Connect | | Enter | Save tunnel | | Esc | Cancel |

Topology Graph & Live Inspector (v / g)

| Key | Action | | --- | --- | | Space / Enter | Activate / Deactivate tunnel | | x | Toggle Live Traffic Inspector / Topology View | | y / Ctrl+Y | Copy all captured packets to clipboard | | m | Toggle Hex + ASCII Dump / ASCII Text Stream mode | | f | Pause / Resume live packet stream | | c | Clear packet capture buffer | | ← / → | Switch between tunnels | | ↑ / ↓ / PgUp / PgDn | Scroll packet stream | | Esc / q | Back to Tunnel Manager |

⚙️ Configuration

| Storage | Description | | --- | --- | | Local | Standard SSH config at ~/.ssh/config, passwords in system keyring | | Bitwarden | Secrets stored securely in Bitwarden vault via bw CLI |

SSH-X-Term stores metadata as clean structured comments in your standard SSH config and remains 100% compatible with OpenSSH tools.

🔑 SSH Agent Setup (Recommended)

eval $(ssh-agent)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Once added, SSH-X-Term can use encrypted keys seamlessly without prompting for passphrases.

🛡️ Security & Disclaimer

SSH-X-Term is released under the MIT License.

• Credentials are never logged or stored in plaintext.
• All secrets are delegated to native OS Keyring APIs or Bitwarden.
• Tunnels run in secure goroutines with memory isolation and bounded ring buffers for packet inspection.

👏 Credits

• Bubble Tea & Lip Gloss — Terminal UI framework & styling
• go-keyring — Secure OS credential storage
• Bitwarden CLI — Vault integration
• OpenSSH — Protocol specifications and compatibility