SSHUI

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

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/174a30fe-a076-4ae3-b2c0-3fea9acb4dd4

• 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!

Add to your Cargo.toml:

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

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.

The repository includes example applications:

• Example - All the following examples at once :) (except login and counter)
• Bad Apple - The bad apple video, in ascii, from SSH! (i bet im not the first one)
• Chat App - Send messages to all connected users!
• Demo - The Ratatui Demo, adapted for SSHUI
• 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

• 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

© Kodeur_Kubik - Code available under the MIT License