purple - Terminal SSH Manager and Tunnel Monitor in Rust
Author: Eric Kochen
Description: Terminal SSH manager in Rust with live tunnel monitoring, fuzzy host search, sync from 16 clouds, scp transfer, Docker over SSH and Vault SSH certs. Free Termius alternative.
Keywords: ssh manager, ssh client, ssh config editor, terminal ssh manager, tui ssh, rust ssh tui, ratatui, termius alternative, sshs alternative, ssh bookmarks manager, cloud ssh sync, multi-cloud ssh inventory, ssh tunnel manager, live ssh tunnel monitoring, ssh tunnel dashboard, real-time ssh tunnel, ssh tunnel throughput, ssh swimlane, sftp client, scp file transfer, docker over ssh, podman over ssh, agentless container management, portainer alternative, hashicorp vault ssh, short-lived ssh certificates, mcp server, model context protocol, claude code ssh, claude desktop ssh, mcpb bundle, ssh mcp server, ai agent ssh tool, mcp audit log, devops, sysadmin, homelab

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One terminal. All your servers.

## Open-source terminal SSH manager and SSH config editor for macOS and Linux.
Search, connect, transfer files and manage containers. All from one TUI.

purple
$
Downloading purple v3.2.0 for darwin-arm64...
Installing to /usr/local/bin/purple... done.
$ brew install erickochen/purple/purple
$ cargo install purple-ssh
$ nix profile install github:erickochen/purple

I had a perfectly good SSH config. Clean, well-organized, no complaints. That part worked.

What didn't work was the six other things I needed to do every day. Every container check was `ssh`, `docker ps`, scroll, repeat. Every file transfer was remembering `scp` flags. Every new cloud VM meant opening a console, copying an IP, editing my config by hand. And running the same command across a dozen hosts? That was either a bash loop or a whole Ansible setup for a one-liner.

So I put all of it in one terminal.

🔍 Find any host in a keystroke. Fuzzy matching across hostnames, IPs, tags and users. Your most-used servers float to the top automatically. Press `:` for a command palette with all 24 actions.
☁️ Pull servers from 16 cloud providers. AWS, Azure, GCP, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Proxmox VE, Tailscale and 9 more. New VMs sync in, IPs stay current, decommissioned hosts get flagged.
🐳 See and control containers remotely. Docker and Podman over plain SSH. Start, stop, restart without installing anything on the remote.
🚇 Watch your SSH tunnels in real time. Dedicated Tunnels page with live throughput, channel events and the apps moving bytes. Local, Remote and Dynamic SOCKS, all in one sortable view. `Tab` from the Hosts page.
📂 Browse and copy files between machines. Dual-pane file explorer. Local filesystem on one side, remote on the other. Handles ProxyJump chains and tunnels.
⚡ Run one command on many hosts. Pick a snippet, select your targets, execute. Results stream in per host.
🔑 Passwords handled for you. Plugs into OS Keychain, 1Password, Bitwarden, pass, the HashiCorp Vault KV secrets engine or a custom script. Credentials are fetched at connect time.
📜 Short-lived SSH certificates. Integrates with the HashiCorp Vault SSH secrets engine. Configure a role per host or per provider, press V to bulk-sign. Cached under ~/.purple/certs with automatic renewal.
🤖 Let AI agents manage your servers. Built-in MCP server with one-click `.mcpb` install for Claude Desktop. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf and any MCP-compatible agent. Read-only mode and a JSON Lines audit log are built in.
📬 What's new overlay. Sticky toast and overlay summarizing releases since you last opened. Press n to reopen.
Cloud providers

- AWS EC2
- Azure
- DigitalOcean
- GCP
- Hetzner
- i3D.net
- Leaseweb
- Linode
- Oracle Cloud
- OVHcloud
- Proxmox VE
- Scaleway
- Tailscale
- TransIP
- UpCloud
- Vultr

FAQ
PURPLE(1)General Commands ManualPURPLE(1)
Does purple modify my SSH config?
Only when you explicitly add, edit, delete or sync. All writes are atomic with automatic backups. Comments, indentation and unknown directives are preserved.
Does it need a daemon or background process?
No. Single binary. Run it, use it, close it.
Does it send my config anywhere?
No. Your config never leaves your machine. Provider sync calls cloud APIs to fetch server lists. The TUI checks GitHub for new releases on startup (cached 24 hours). That's it.
Can I manage Docker containers with purple?
Yes. Press `C` on any host to list all containers over SSH. Start, stop, restart. Auto-detects Docker or Podman. No agent, no web UI, no extra ports.
Can AI assistants use purple?
Yes. Run `curl -fsSL getpurple.sh | sh`, then `purple mcp` to start the MCP server. Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf and other agents get five tools: list_hosts, get_host, run_command, list_containers and container_action. Pass `--read-only` to restrict it to list_hosts, get_host and list_containers. Every call is logged to `~/.purple/mcp-audit.log` by default (JSON Lines, mode 0o600, run_command body redacted). Claude Desktop users can install the `.mcpb` bundle from GitHub releases for a one-click setup. Full setup guide on the wiki.
How do I troubleshoot connection problems?
Run with `--verbose` to enable debug logging, then `purple logs --tail` in another terminal. Logs are written to `~/.purple/purple.log` with fault domain prefixes: `[external]` for remote/tool errors, `[config]` for local config issues. Set `PURPLE_LOG=trace` for maximum detail.
purple v3.2.02026-05-04PURPLE(1)
`$ curl -fsSL getpurple.sh | sh`