hosttui

A terminal UI to manage SSH hosts: browse, organize in groups, connect, and transfer files.

Features

• Browse hosts in a grouped, scrollable list with a detail pane
• Groups — create, delete, and filter hosts by group
• CRUD — add, edit, and delete hosts via a form overlay with validation
• Multi-session — open multiple SSH sessions in tabs and switch between them without disconnecting
• Connect — press Enter to SSH into a host; the TUI suspends cleanly and restores on exit
• File transfer — dual-pane SFTP browser (local + remote) with background uploads/downloads and progress bars
• SSH config generation — auto-generates ~/.ssh/config.hosttui on every change
• Persistent config — hosts are stored in ~/.config/hosttui/hosts.toml with atomic writes

Install

From crates.io

cargo install hosttui

From source

cargo install --path .

From GitHub releases

Download a prebuilt binary from the releases page, extract, and place it in your PATH.

Usage

ht (hosttui's short name)

Key bindings

Key	Action
j / ↓	Move down
k / ↑	Move up
Tab	Switch focus between Groups and Hosts panes
Enter	Connect to selected host via SSH
t	Test connection to host
a	Add a new host
e	Edit selected host
d	Delete selected host or group
g	Create a new group (when Groups pane is focused)
f	Open file transfer browser for selected host
q / Esc	Quit

Tab navigation

When you have active SSH sessions, a tab bar appears at the bottom. Use Ctrl+T as a prefix key followed by a command:

Key	Action
Ctrl+T h / Ctrl+T 0	Switch to Hosts tab
Ctrl+T 1-9	Switch to session N
Ctrl+T n	Next tab
Ctrl+T p	Previous tab
Ctrl+T x	Close current session
Ctrl+T ?	Show tab help
Ctrl+T f	Open file transfer browser for the session's host
Ctrl+T Ctrl+T	Send literal Ctrl+T to session

File transfer navigation

Press f in the hosts view (or Ctrl+T f in a session) to open a dual-pane SFTP browser. The left pane shows the local filesystem; the right pane shows the remote.

Key	Action
j / ↓	Move cursor down
k / ↑	Move cursor up
Tab	Switch focus between Local and Remote pane
Enter	Enter directory / initiate transfer if file
Backspace / h	Go to parent directory
y	Transfer focused file to the other pane
m	Create directory
d	Delete file or directory (with confirmation)
r	Refresh both pane listings
.	Toggle hidden files
s	Cycle sort field (Name → Size → Modified)
Esc	Close file transfer tab

Transfers run in the background. A progress bar at the bottom of the view shows status while a transfer is active.

Form navigation

Key	Action
Tab	Next field
Shift+Tab	Previous field
Enter	Save
Esc	Cancel

SSH config integration

hosttui generates ~/.ssh/config.hosttui every time you save a change. To use it, add this to your ~/.ssh/config:

Match all
Include config.hosttui

Config format

Hosts are stored in TOML at ~/.config/hosttui/hosts.toml:

[[groups]]
name = "production"

[[hosts]]
alias = "web1"
hostname = "10.0.1.10"
user = "deploy"
port = 22
group = "production"
identity_file = "~/.ssh/prod_key"
extra = []

License

MIT