Port forwarding

Ctrl-f on a host starts an SSH tunnel that keeps running after you quit sshelf. Set it up, close the TUI (or the whole terminal), and it stays up until you stop it or it drops.

Creating a forward (Ctrl-f)

Pick a kind (cycle with ←/→):

• Local (-L, the default) is a local port that tunnels to something reachable from the server. E.g. reach the server’s private database as 127.0.0.1:8080 on your machine.
• Remote (-R) is a port on the server that tunnels back to something reachable from your machine. E.g. let someone on the server’s network reach a dev server on your laptop.
• Dynamic (-D) is a local SOCKS proxy that routes traffic through the server.

Fill in the ports and host (the defaults are bind 127.0.0.1 and target host localhost), then press Ctrl-s. sshelf spawns a detached ssh -N ... reusing the host’s auth exactly as connect does (keys/agent/ProxyJump, stored password, site defaults), then waits briefly to confirm the tunnel actually bound. A failure is shown in the popup so you can fix a field and retry:

• local port already in use, so pick another port;
• privileged port: ports below 1024 need root, so use 1024 or higher;
• server refused the remote bind: the server’s sshd controls remote binds (GatewayPorts);
• authentication / DNS failures, reported as-is.

On success you’re back at the list and the tunnel runs on its own.

The forwards manager (F4)

Lists every active forward across all hosts: the host, a summary like L 127.0.0.1:8080 → db:3306, the pid, and the age.

The list refreshes live and is reconciled against the actually-running processes: a forward that ends (stopped here, killed from another terminal, or dropped on its own after sleep or network loss) disappears within a moment, and on every launch sshelf shows only forwards that are still really up. The ledger lives in forwards.json (data model), but the processes are authoritative; the file is just remembered PIDs. Design details: decisions.md, D-021.

Why they survive

Each forward is its own detached process in its own process group, with no tie to sshelf or your terminal: quitting sshelf orphans it (fine), and closing the terminal doesn’t hang it up. Stop one from F4, or kill <pid> works too; sshelf notices either way.