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SSH Tunnel app icon SSH Tunnel

Features

SSH Tunnel wraps the ssh -M master-socket workflow and layers management, monitoring, and recovery on top. Each link below goes to the guide that covers the feature in depth.

Tunnel management

Section titled “Tunnel management”
  • Manage multiple tunnels from the menu bar and Settings sidebar.
  • Add, delete, and reorder tunnels in Settings; the menu follows the same order.
  • Start or stop each tunnel with an Active toggle.
  • Autosave tunnel edits, quick forward edits, labels, timing values, and the global logging level.

See Settings and Using the App.

Status at a glance

Section titled “Status at a glance”
  • Show tunnel state through the menu bar icon color: idle (gray), connecting / reconnecting (yellow), connected (green), failed (red).
  • Open connected localhost ports from clickable port pills.

See Using the App.

Self-healing connections

Section titled “Self-healing connections”
  • Run scheduled health checks with ssh -O check plus TCP probes on every forwarded port.
  • Run Check Now for an immediate health check and macOS notification.
  • Reconnect automatically with exponential backoff when the master drops, unless the tunnel was stopped manually.
  • Stop retrying after 10 consecutive failed attempts and surface the last error.
  • Reconnect on network changes through NWPathMonitor and on system wake.
  • Detect local port conflicts before starting, name the holder, and offer a session-only remap of a busy config LocalForward port onto a free local port.

See Health Checks & Reconnects.

Quick Forwards

Section titled “Quick Forwards”
  • Add remote ports through Quick Forward from the menu bar or Settings.
  • Remove quick forwards with ssh -O cancel and reapply saved quick forwards after reconnects or app restarts.

See Quick Forwards.

Start at Login

Section titled “Start at Login”
  • Enable Start at Login per tunnel; the macOS login item is enabled while at least one tunnel has it on (via SMAppService).
  • Delay Start at Login until the network is ready, with an optional startup TCP check for VPN-only endpoints.

See Settings to configure it and Health Checks & Reconnects for the readiness behavior.

Robust process lifecycle

Section titled “Robust process lifecycle”
  • Launch as a single-instance app. Opening a second copy activates the existing app and exits the new process.
  • Own the master ssh process and stop app-started masters on normal quit.
  • Adopt a live master at the app control path after relaunch.
  • Clean stale control sockets before each start.
  • Use hardened SSH defaults: ServerAliveInterval=15, ServerAliveCountMax=3, ConnectTimeout=10, and ExitOnForwardFailure=yes.

See SSH Command Mapping and Terminal Coexistence.

Diagnostics & shortcuts

Section titled “Diagnostics & shortcuts”
  • Run diagnostics for required fields, ssh -G, SSH config forwards, ControlPath safety, and local port availability.
  • Menu keyboard shortcuts: ⌘ + , for Settings, ⇧ + ⌘ + ? for How to Use, and ⌘ + Q to quit.

See Settings and Debugging & Logs.