SSHub

SSHub is a fast, minimal SSH client for the desktop, built with Flutter. Save your servers, connect with one click, and work in a full terminal. Credentials stay encrypted on your machine.

Features

• Manage your SSH servers as a grid of cards, with add / edit / delete and color tags
• Live server status: each card shows whether the host is online, offline, or being checked
• Password or SSH key authentication (OpenSSH, RSA, or EC keys, with an optional key passphrase)
• Host key verification: SSHub remembers each server's fingerprint per key type and refuses to connect if it changes, with a deliberate "forget host key" action for servers you rebuilt
• Full in-app terminal powered by dartssh2 + xterm, with copy / paste, select all, and find-in-scrollback
• Tabbed sessions: up to ten servers open at once, each keeping its own scrollback, with keyboard switching
• SFTP file browser: browse in a list or a grid, upload, download, rename, delete and create folders, over its own connection
• Read-only mode, on by default, so the file browser cannot change anything on the server until you unlock it
• Built-in file viewer for text files, with binary detection and a size cap
• Auto-reconnect: dropped connections retry on their own before reporting a failure
• Snippets: save reusable commands or credentials and paste them into any session
• Keyboard shortcuts for common actions, with an in-app cheat sheet
• App lock with biometric / system unlock
• Encrypted backup export and import to move your data between machines
• In-app update check against the latest GitHub release
• Credentials stored securely in the OS keychain (Windows Credential Manager, macOS Keychain, etc.), never in plain text; keys stay on your machine and are excluded from backups
• Server list stored locally as JSON, so your data never leaves your machine
• Settings: light / dark / system theme, terminal font size and family
• Friendly connection errors with one-click retry

Planned

• Downloading and uploading whole folders
• Editing a remote file in place
• Selecting multiple files for batch actions
• A transfer queue, so more than one transfer can run at a time
• Resuming an interrupted transfer instead of starting over
• Viewing and changing file permissions
• Searching within a folder

Platforms

Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS

Desktop (Windows) is the primary target. Web is not supported because browsers cannot open the raw TCP sockets that SSH requires.

Installation

Download the build for your platform from the Releases page, then follow the short steps below.

The builds aren't code-signed yet, so your OS shows a one-time "unknown developer" warning the first time you open the app. That's expected, and the steps below get past it.

Windows

1. Download sshub-windows-setup.exe and run it.
2. If SmartScreen pops up: click More info -> Run anyway.

Prefer no installer? Download sshub-windows-x64-portable.zip, extract the whole folder, and run sshub.exe inside it.

macOS

1. Open sshub-macos.dmg and drag SSHub into Applications.
2. If macOS says the app is "damaged", run this once in Terminal, then open it normally:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SSHub.app

Linux

AppImage (easiest):

chmod +x sshub-linux-x86_64.AppImage
./sshub-linux-x86_64.AppImage

FUSE error? Run sudo apt install libfuse2.

Tarball: extract sshub-linux-x64.tar.gz and run ./sshub (needs GTK 3 and libsecret, which most desktops already have).

Android

1. Download and open sshub-android.apk.
2. Allow install from unknown apps if asked; if Play Protect warns, tap Install anyway.

iOS

No prebuilt download. Build from source with Xcode using your own signing identity (see below).

Tech Stack

Framework	Flutter
State management	flutter_bloc
SSH	dartssh2
Terminal	xterm (vendored, see note)
Secret storage	flutter_secure_storage

Note: third_party/xterm is a local copy of xterm.dart with a one-line fix for broken keyboard input on Flutter 3.44+ Windows (xterm.dart#207). The dependency_overrides entry in pubspec.yaml points to it and can be removed once the fix lands upstream.

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/mdfarhankc/SSHub.git
cd SSHub
flutter pub get
flutter run -d windows   # or linux / macos / your device

Building Release Artifacts Locally

The GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) builds every platform's artifact on a version tag push. You can reproduce any of them locally. Each platform must be built on its own OS.

Windows (installer + portable zip)

Requires Inno Setup 6: winget install JRSoftware.InnoSetup.

flutter build windows --release
# Installer -> dist/sshub-windows-setup.exe
& "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\Inno Setup 6\ISCC.exe" windows\packaging\sshub.iss
# Portable  -> dist/sshub-windows-x64-portable.zip
Compress-Archive -Path build/windows/x64/runner/Release/* -DestinationPath dist/sshub-windows-x64-portable.zip

A machine-wide Inno Setup install lives at C:\Program Files (x86)\Inno Setup 6\ISCC.exe instead.

Linux (AppImage + tarball)

sudo apt-get install -y clang cmake ninja-build pkg-config libgtk-3-dev liblzma-dev libsecret-1-dev libjsoncpp-dev
flutter build linux --release

# Tarball -> dist/sshub-linux-x64.tar.gz
mkdir -p dist
tar -czf dist/sshub-linux-x64.tar.gz -C build/linux/x64/release/bundle .

# AppImage -> dist/sshub-linux-x86_64.AppImage
mkdir -p AppDir/usr/bin
cp -r build/linux/x64/release/bundle/* AppDir/usr/bin/
cp assets/icon/icon.png AppDir/sshub.png
printf '%s\n' '[Desktop Entry]' 'Name=SSHub' 'Exec=sshub' 'Icon=sshub' 'Type=Application' 'Categories=Utility;' > AppDir/sshub.desktop
printf '%s\n' '#!/bin/bash' 'HERE="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "${0}")")"' 'exec "${HERE}/usr/bin/sshub" "$@"' > AppDir/AppRun
chmod +x AppDir/AppRun
wget -q https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage
chmod +x appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage
APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1 ./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage AppDir dist/sshub-linux-x86_64.AppImage

macOS (dmg)

flutter build macos --release
APP=$(ls -d build/macos/Build/Products/Release/*.app | head -1)
mkdir -p dmg dist
cp -R "$APP" dmg/
ln -s /Applications dmg/Applications
hdiutil create -volname "SSHub" -srcfolder dmg -ov -format UDZO dist/sshub-macos.dmg

Android (apk)

flutter build apk --release   # -> build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk

Release signing needs android/key.properties and the keystore, which are gitignored and never committed. Without them the build is unsigned. In CI these are restored from repository secrets.

Cutting a Release

1. Bump the version in all four places: pubspec.yaml, lib/core/app_info.dart, windows/packaging/sshub.iss, and site/src/lib/site.ts.

2. Update RELEASE_NOTES.md (its contents become the GitHub release body, and its heading carries the version too).

3. Check that nothing drifted:

   make version

4. Commit, then tag and push:

   make tag                     # refuses to tag unless every file agrees
   git push origin main --tags

The tag push triggers the workflow, which builds all platforms and attaches the artifacts above to a GitHub release named after the tag.

Project Structure

Feature-first clean architecture:

lib/
├── core/            # auth, backup, di, logging, router, shortcuts, theme, update, widgets
└── features/
    ├── onboarding/
    ├── splash/
    ├── settings/
    ├── sftp/
    ├── snippets/
    └── ssh/
        ├── data/          # datasources, models, repository impls
        ├── domain/        # entities, repository interfaces, usecases
        └── presentation/  # blocs, cubits, pages, widgets

Contributing

SSHub is not accepting external code contributions at the moment, so pull requests will be closed for now. Bug reports and feature ideas are very welcome though, please open an issue using one of the templates.

License

SSHub is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. You are free to use, run, study and share it, and any distributed derivative must remain open under the same license and keep the original copyright notice.

The vendored third_party/xterm copy keeps its own license, included alongside it.

Author

Mohammed Farhan K C (@mdfarhankc)