Secure ShellFish

@trbutler@mastodon.faithtree.social It isn’t in production yet and I cannot roll these things out in order. Some large features like Mosh need much more battle testing. But I’m close to satisfied with the testing of Mosh.

Finally the Help section from the app is available on the world wide web with room for additional details and links.
https://secureshellfish.app/help

Anything you think needs to be included?

I haven't been able to release TestFlight betas for Mac since April 28 as Apple will need more than a few days to approve and I will submit something fresh and the cycle repeats.

But it is possible to test Mosh support on iOS. https://testflight.apple.com/join/ZNHQt882

also started testing a new persistence option

I'm testing the ability to customize buttons on the Fn keyboard.

All keyboard bar and Fn customizations can be saved as presets, which you can switch between by long-pressing the Fn key and share with friends.

https://testflight.apple.com/join/ZNHQt882

@teaneedz@social.vivaldi.net It might help to know that you can have several addresses with comma in between that are tried in order.

@teaneedz@social.vivaldi.net I have done extensive testing and tweaking to make it work well with Tailscale.

Please tell me where you are having issues in that regard and I can maybe help.

@teaneedz@social.vivaldi.net I don’t know a lot about CloudFlare tunnels and have no special support, so a quick guess would be no.

The app uses networking APIs by default that give on-demand VPNs a chance to trigger which could both help and hurt in this case.

These tunnels require cli tool on Mac, right?

ShellFish has been beta testing "tmux native mode" for a few weeks, allowing tmux sessions to look like regular terminals with native scrolling and without the tmux bar.

Help test this in the TestFlight version of the app.

https://testflight.apple.com/join/ZNHQt882

@trbutler I will try to think of something. This is one of those situations where making a configuration UI that is flexible enough to be useful and making one that is clear enough to be useable is pulling in different directions.

@joel@gts.tumfatig.net Port forwarding is not currently included in exports/imports. Will have a look at that.

ShellFish considers port forwards shared by all servers that you toggle for each server and this doesn’t fit naturally in a server export/import.

@joel@gts.tumfatig.net You can export and import from any device, but the ssh/config format doesn’t preserve all properties so please use CSV if you want to import back into ShellFish.

Also passwords are never exported because that scares me. 😅

@joel@gts.tumfatig.net This is a problem I have been working on for a while.

Automatic sync without iCloud Keychain is not yet possible but manual sync is.

You can import a csv file from the Files app and if this has identifiers it can update rather than just add server entries.

Please check Features/Server Import inside the Help screen.

The last few versions have added significant improvements:

Pro users can show the terminal as Live Activity on the lock screen or in Dynamic Island.

Commands to post notifications and update widgets support end-to-end encrypted image attachments.

ShellFish now supports post-quantum key-exchange algorithms, short-lived SSH certificates & Tailscale-aware networking.

https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1336634154?pt=15897&ct=mastodon&mt=8

@fra000 I'm trying to address the advantages of Mosh at other levels and already think the current first-class tmux support is doing a good job. It can reconnect automatically but also handle session restoration when the app has been in the background for too long and use hand-off to pass tmux sessions from one device to another. I'm working on echo/response prediction and when done with this work I will evaluate if there is still a need for Mosh.

@bkrnk 🙏

Do you enjoy Secure ShellFish and how it is being maintained?
Consider leaving a rating or review as this really helps with App Store visibility.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/secure-shellfish-ssh-sftp/id1336634154?action=write-review

@snkhan@infosec.exchange Thank you for reporting this. I expect to have a fix ready in v2026.2

I'm ready with initial support for short-lived SSH certificates generated on-demand by a Certificate Authority with authentication through OpenID.

I want this to work with a wide variety of Certificate Authority configurations, but my testing has been limited to the setup described here: https://smallstep.com/blog/diy-single-sign-on-for-ssh/

Your feedback is essential. Please join the TestFlight and help battle-test this to make sure it works well for your setup: https://testflight.apple.com/join/YEECE7b4

@tastapod It does not support mosh. I’m instead using tmux to keep connections alive as the app enters the background or switches between networks.

Black Friday deal: Get Lifetime Pro unlock for $22.49 (normally $29.99).

One-time purchase, works forever, syncs across iPhone/iPad/Mac. Unlimited servers, no banner ads, and read/write ShellFish location in Finder/Files app.

https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1336634154?pt=15897&ct=mastodon&mt=8

Sale runs through the weekend.

You are not supposed to have favorites but Jim is now my favorite user.

https://appfigures.com/reviews/281476240896Lxk35vG0YNqi9BVb6pNTT7A?lang=en

This small video shows 3 useful features:
• built-in tmux support for session restoration with thumbnails
• dictation which requires iOS 26 as earlier transcription models worked poorly
• picture-in-picture terminal to check progress when using other apps

@anthonylavado This is configurable as part of each colour theme. But I have had an A/B test where the default was white or yellow for each device so I could try to determine how many abandoned the app based on this colour alone.