🖥 SSH console & keys

Operate your own Linux servers remotely – right in the program, with a key instead of a password, and the session is kept.

What it does for you

• No extra program like PuTTY needed, no managing key files by hand.
• Sign in with one click and with a key that can't be guessed.
• If the connection drops, your work on the server keeps running and DasDing reconnects by itself.

Who it is for: Anyone who runs their own servers, a Raspberry Pi, a NAS or My container. Not needed for everyone else.
What you need: A server with SSH access, two-factor sign-in and a password vault. The tab is being enabled step by step.

Your Raspberry Pi in the basement, a rented web server or the NAS: none of these devices has a screen you can look at. They are operated remotely by typing commands. The standard way to do this is called SSH.

What is SSH – simply put

SSH is a remote control by text for a computer, usually a Linux server. You type a command, the server runs it and sends back the answer. The connection is encrypted; nobody in between can read along.

What is an SSH key – and why is it better than a password?

A key consists of two matching parts: a private one (stays with you, in the vault) and a public one (goes onto the server). Compare it to a letterbox: anyone may see the public part – the slot – but only someone with the private part can open it. A key can't be guessed, can't be spied over your shoulder and is never transmitted when signing in.

Safe

your private key is stored encrypted in the password vault and is therefore available on all your devices. That's why the SSH tab needs a created and unlocked vault.

Adding a server

1. Tab 🖥 SSH, on the left at Server click ➕.
2. Name, address (IP or host name), port (usually 22), user.
3. Sign-in: “SSH key in the vault – recommended”. DasDing creates a key when saving.
4. Enter the server's password once (only for the first connection) → Save.
5. In the dialog “🔑 SSH key created” click “Connect and store now”. DasDing signs in once with the password and adds the public key to the server. From then on one click is enough.

On the first connection DasDing shows the server's fingerprint – an identifier by which you recognise it: “Trust and connect”. If it changes later, DasDing warns clearly. Then first find out whether the server really was reinstalled – otherwise someone could have put themselves in between.

The session is kept

The laptop goes into standby, the Wi-Fi changes, the train goes into a tunnel – in the past everything running in the terminal was gone. With the tick “Keep session on the server” (default: on) every new console runs on the server in a tmux session. tmux is a widely used Linux program that keeps terminal sessions running on the server even when nobody is connected.

• If the connection drops, DasDing tries by itself up to six times to reconnect – and you are exactly where you were. Running programs simply kept working.
• To end it: type exit in the terminal. After that DasDing doesn't reconnect. ⏏ Disconnect doesn't reconnect either; the session on the server then keeps running until you end it with exit.
• If tmux is not installed on the server, the normal console starts (without “persistent”).

Working in the session

• ⌨ Terminal: type commands. Paste with Ctrl+V or right-click; copy: select text, then Ctrl+C. Without a selection, Ctrl+C cancels the running command as usual.
• 📁 Files: view files on the server, upload and download, rename, delete.
• 🌐 Tunnel: open a web page that only runs on the server (for example on port 8080) in your browser – without exposing it to the internet.
• ⏏ Disconnect.

Quick connect

⚡ Quick connect … for one-off access: nothing is saved. If it fits, you then take the connection over into the vault with “⭐ Save as 1-click server”, key included.

Do I need the vault every time?

To connect, yes, because the key is stored there. For reconnecting automatically after a drop, no – that also works if the vault has locked itself in the meantime.

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This guide is also available in the program under 📖 Guides – with jump links to the other guides.