Introduction

ShellHub is a modern SSH server for remotely accessing Linux devices via command line (using any SSH client) or web-based user interface. It is intended to be used instead of sshd.

Typically, if you want to SSH a Linux device on a local network, you just need to know its IP address. However, in order to access a Linux device from outside the local network, you will have to go through a few inconveniences, such as getting its public IP address and configuring the router. Changing the VPN/firewall configuration can be cumbersome if the device is behind a corporate firewall that does not allow SSH connections.

ShellHub provides a way to avoid all these hassles, helping you easily and seamlessly access any Linux device behind firewall and NAT.

Overview

This introduction section is intended to give a high-level overview of the ShellHub.

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There are few basic concepts that are important to understand the ShellHub. Those basic concepts are detailed below:

SSH Gateway

The SSH gateway is a SSH server which forward connections to the devices running ShellHub's agent.

Device

An internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific like a single-board computer, running ShellHub's agent.

Agent

ShellHub's agent which must be installed on the device.

SSHID

SSHID is a unique address to identify a device in the SSH gateway, which must be specified in the following format:

<NAMESPACE>.<HOSTNAME>@<SERVER_ADDRESS>

Where:

• <NAMESPACE>: Is the account namespace identifier
• <HOSTNAME>: Is the device hostname identifier
• <SERVER_ADDRESS>: Is the ShellHub server instance address identifier

Example of SSHID: demo.device-1@cloud.shellhub.io