Remote workspaces
Whole workspaces hosted on another machine — files, repos, panes, and git all stay over there.
An SSH pane runs one shell on a remote machine. A remote workspace goes further: Nermalruns a server on the far machine, and the whole workbench points at it. Tabs, splits, the file tree, the git panel, the diff overlay, the process list — all of it is the remote machine's, rendered here.
Nothing is synced or copied. The repository stays where it is.
Connecting
Open the New Workspace form
⌘ ⇧ N, or the button at the bottom of the switcher
(⌘ ⇧ O). The form's host dropdown lists This Computer, every
saved SSH profile, your ~/.ssh/config aliases and, on Windows, every WSL
distribution — type to filter when the list is long.
Pick a machine
Nermalconnects over the same SSH stack as everything else, so profiles, keychain credentials, and jump hosts all apply. A machine that is not connected yet connects first, then creates the workspace in its home directory.
Approve the server install, once
The first connection asks:
Nermalwill write its server binary to devbox so this machine can host workspaces there. Nothing else on devbox is touched, and no sudo is used.
It shows the exact path, version, size, source, and SHA-256 before you agree. Later upgrades on that machine install silently.
Open a workspace
From then on the machine's workspaces sit in the switcher's flat list next to your local ones, each row carrying the machine's name and link state, and a new one opens like a local one.
What gets installed
| What | A single self-contained Nermal-server binary |
| Where | ~/.local/share/Nermal/bin/Nermal-server-c<control>p<protocol> |
| Privileges | None. No sudo, nothing outside your home directory |
| Hosts | Linux (x86-64 or aarch64) and macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel) |
The Linux binary is linked fully static against musl, so it runs on any distribution whatever its glibc vintage. The macOS one links only the libraries every Mac already has. Either way nothing is installed beside it.
The binary is named after the wire dialect it speaks, so a client and a server that disagree never quietly half-work — Nermalinstalls the matching one instead.
On Windows, a WSL distribution is handed the Linux server the installer already shipped, so a WSL workspace needs no network access at all.
Reattaching
Remote workspaces are the point at which persistence pays off twice: the panes survive on the remote machine whether or not your laptop is awake, and you can reattach from a different client entirely.
A strip along the top of the window says what the connection is doing — connecting, reconnecting (attempt 3), disconnected, or taken over by someone else. Reconnection is automatic; a workspace another client has claimed says so by name rather than fighting over it.
Deleting a profile
Deleting an SSH profile forgets every local workspace entry that connected through it. The confirmation names the profile's endpoint and counts the entries going with it, and the profile's keychain credentials go too. Only the bookmarks on this computer are touched — the sessions on the remote machine keep running, and connecting to that machine again under a new profile brings its workspaces back into the switcher from the machine's own list.
An entry holding a live or in-flight connection is left alone, and parks once the link drops: it stops reconnecting on its own, keeps the name of the route that made it rather than falling back to an internal id, and its switcher row offers Remove entry. The sessions behind it are still on the machine, waiting for a new profile.
Keeping the server current
Two dialogs you may meet:
The machine is serving sessions from a build whose protocol this client cannot speak. Nermalhas already installed a matching server, but the one already running is the one your sessions are on. Update Server replaces it and ends every session it is hosting — including ones this window is not showing. Cancel leaves the machine exactly as it is.
Same consequence, deliberately: every shell on that machine ends. Workspaces and layouts are kept and come back with fresh shells.
Both of these end other people's work if the machine is shared. Nermalspells out what will happen before either one runs — read it.
What a remote pane cannot do
- Fork an agent session. The fork command would run against the local agent, so Nermaldoes not offer it.
- Move very large files through the Files panel. Drag-and-drop across the link is capped at what one control frame can carry; past that the panel tells you to use SFTP.
From the CLI
Nermalmachine ls # this machine plus every link the server holds
Nermal-m devbox ls # route any command to a linked machine
Nermal-m devbox run -- cargo test-m matches the full link key (me@devbox:22) or just the host. It uses a link
the local server already holds — it will not dial a fresh connection, and it
says so rather than guessing. Connect from the switcher first.