SSHUI

A Rust framework for building interactive terminal user interfaces (TUIs) that run over SSH. Built on top of Ratatui and russh.

Demo

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f3a5bf04-11df-4d3f-a8c0-1e2e67021fa4

Features

SSH Server - Host your TUI application on an SSH server
Ratatui Integration - Build beautiful terminal UIs using the Ratatui framework
Client Isolation - Each SSH client gets its own application instance
ANSI Rendering - Full support for colors and styles
Terminal Resizing - Handles dynamic terminal size changes
Customizable Auth - Ask for a specific username and password (or not!)
Backend Support - Write your own backend to connect clients to each other!

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
sshui = "0.2"
ratatui = "0.28"
anyhow = "1.0"

Quick Start

Implement the App trait for your TUI:

use sshui::{App, SSHUITerminal, InputEvent, KeyCode, KeyEvent};
use anyhow::Result;

struct MyApp {
    counter: i32,
    exit: bool,
}

impl App for MyApp {
    fn render(&mut self, terminal: &mut SSHUITerminal) -> Result<Option<String>> {
        terminal.draw(|frame| {
            let area = frame.area();
            // Draw your UI here
        })?;

        Ok(if self.exit {
            Some("Exited".to_string())
        } else {
            None
        })
    }

    fn input(&mut self, event: InputEvent) {
        if let InputEvent::Key(KeyEvent { key, .. }) = event {
            match key {
                KeyCode::Char('q') => self.exit = true,
                KeyCode::Up => self.counter += 1,
                KeyCode::Down => self.counter -= 1,
                _ => {}
            }
        }
    }
}

impl Default for MyApp {
    fn default() -> Self {
        Self {
            counter: 0,
            exit: false,
        }
    }
}

Start the SSH server:

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
    let config = sshui::Config::default();
    // also include ssh keys
    // which you can get using the keyring feature
    // and the sshui::get_ssh_key function

    sshui::new_server(config, ("0.0.0.0", 2222), || Box::new(MyApp::default()))
        .await?;

    Ok(())
}

Connect via SSH:

ssh -p 2222 localhost

Press Ctrl+C to exit.

Examples

The repository includes example applications:

Example - All the following examples at once :)
Graph - A really cool grapher in the terminal (holy moly)
Counter - A simple incrementing counter with keyboard controls
Wordle - A word guessing game
Login - A 'Hello World' behind the username 'hello' and password 'world'

Run an example: (you can specify the port with --port {number})

cargo run -p example --release

Then connect via SSH:

ssh -p 2222 localhost

Limitations

Cursor position cannot be queried from SSH clients, so get_cursor() always returns (0, 0)
Password authentication is disabled by default (implement auth_password() if needed)
Pixel dimensions are not available over SSH

sshui 0.2.0