SSHIT-Commander

Dual-pane file manager with SSH/SFTP and a terminal, for Windows.

Two panes for local and remote directories, paired with a full SSH console and a real terminal. Written in C++20 with Qt 6 and libssh2.

Status: beta. The application works and is covered by 186 automated tests; the SSH layer has been validated against a real OpenSSH server. Broad testing across different servers is still outstanding — see Known limitations.

Features

• File management: two panes (local ⇄ remote), copy/move with a progress queue, bandwidth limit, pause/resume, drag & drop, bulk rename, directory and file comparison, checksums, ZIP, symlinks, permission editor (chmod), file preview, tile and list view, per-server bookmarks (with import/export).
• SSH/SFTP: profile management, authentication by password, key or agent, PuTTY PPK import, host key checking (TOFU) with OpenSSH known_hosts interoperability and a known-hosts manager, ProxyJump/bastion, port forwarding (-L/-R/-D with SOCKS5), sudo filesystem, key generation (Ed25519/RSA/ECDSA) and OpenSSH ↔ PPK conversion.
• Terminal & console: a real PTY (local via ConPTY, remote via SSH) with a full VT100/xterm emulator — vim, htop, tmux and less all work. Switchable between command and terminal mode, history, scrollback search, session logging, and broadcasting a command to both consoles at once.
• Automation: macro manager with a key grid, layers and a sequence editor · SFTP batch with script editor, live log and scheduling · alarm triggers for directories (local and remote) with glob filters, command execution and desktop notifications · GitHub repo alarm (reports new pushes; token stored in Windows Credential Manager) · plugins: hook in external programs, with parameters and context-menu entries.
• Tools: editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers and a minimap · file and content search (grep) · network scanner (hosts, ports, MAC/vendor, shares) · security audit with CVE lookup via OSV.dev · character-set converter (including EBCDIC) · venv/pipenv management · command palette with catalogue and wizard · clipboard history · history & favourites · AI assistant backed by a local Ollama (explain terminal output, ask questions about files, source-code error analysis).
• User interface: tabs with saveable layouts (tab favourites), panes horizontal or vertical, swap and synchronise, filesystem-only and terminal-only views, undockable consoles, freely assignable keyboard shortcuts, four themes plus your own via the theme editor, German and English.

Architecture

Strictly layered — the GUI only ever sees the core interfaces:

src/
├── main.cpp               # entry point
└── ncssh/
    ├── config.hpp/.cpp    # config paths, atomic writes
    ├── core/              # free of UI and networking: models, FileSystemProvider,
    │                      # CommandRunner, command catalogue, profiles, i18n, …
    ├── net/               # libssh2: session, SFTP provider, remote runner,
    │                      # transfer, tunnels, Ollama, OSV.dev
    └── gui/               # Qt Widgets interface
        └── bridge.hpp     # worker threads <-> Qt signals

Key abstractions: FileSystemProvider (local vs. SFTP) and CommandRunner (local vs. remote). Every blocking operation runs through AsyncBridge on worker threads — the window never freezes during SSH operations or transfers.

Building

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 (x64)
• Visual Studio 2022 with the C++ workload (MSVC, CMake, Ninja)
• Qt 6.8 for MSVC x64
• Internet access on the first configure — libssh2 is fetched via CMake FetchContent

Compiling

.\build.ps1            # configures + builds (Ninja, RelWithDebInfo)
.\build.ps1 -Fresh     # delete build/ and reconfigure
.\build\sshit-commander.exe

If Qt is not installed at C:\Qt\6.8.2\msvc2022_64, pass the path once:

cmake --preset default -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="D:/Qt/6.8.2/msvc2022_64"

windeployqt runs automatically after the build and places the required Qt DLLs and plugins next to the executable — the build\ folder is then ready to run.

Distributable package (executable, Qt DLLs/plugins and documents only, no build internals):

.\build.ps1 -Package

Produces build\SSHIT-Commander-<version>.zip.

Tests

.\test.ps1             # 186 tests (or: ctest --test-dir build)

Crypto backend (WinCNG or OpenSSL)

• Default: WinCNG (-DUSE_OPENSSL_BACKEND=OFF). No OpenSSL required, but no ed25519/curve25519. ENABLE_ECDSA_WINCNG enables ecdsa host keys and ecdh-sha2-nistp* key exchange, so standard OpenSSH servers (which offer several algorithms) work. It only fails against servers that offer exclusively ed25519/curve25519, or with ed25519 login keys.
• Opt-in: OpenSSL (-DUSE_OPENSSL_BACKEND=ON) → ed25519/curve25519 + ecdsa. cmake/OpenSSLBackend.cmake provides OpenSSL in one of two ways:
  1. point -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=<path> at a prebuilt static OpenSSL, or
  2. build from source (OpenSSL 3.3.2, Configure VC-WIN64A no-asm no-shared, nmake — no nasm needed). The result is cached in the build directory.
• Requirement for option 2: a complete perl (Strawberry/ActiveState) that includes Locale::Maketext::Simple — the perl shipped with Git Bash is NOT sufficient. If needed, force one with -DOPENSSL_PERL=<path/perl.exe>. Run from an MSVC environment (vcvars) so that nmake/cl are available.
• libssh2 then uses its OpenSSL path, where LIBSSH2_ED25519=1 applies for OpenSSL ≥ 1.1.1 and X25519 is compiled in. Linked statically (no libcrypto DLL). If you use it, keep OpenSSL on a maintained branch (CVEs).

Configuration

Settings, profiles and bookmarks live in %APPDATA%\ncssh. Passwords and tokens go into the Windows Credential Manager, not into the configuration files.

Known limitations

• Windows only. ConPTY, the Credential Manager and the macro actions use the Win32 API directly.
• The default build (WinCNG) lacks ed25519 host keys and curve25519. Servers offering ecdsa/rsa and ecdh/DH — the OpenSSH default configuration — work fine; only servers that offer exclusively ed25519/curve25519, as well as ed25519 login keys, require the OpenSSL build.
• Agent forwarding is not possible: libssh2 cannot accept the agent channels the server opens back. The option is therefore deliberately disabled rather than appearing to work.
• No system-wide macro hotkeys (macro keys are triggered by clicking).
• Not broadly tested: unusual auth/SFTP/tunnel combinations, ProxyJump and ed25519 handshakes, for lack of suitable test servers.

Third-party components

SSHIT-Commander uses the following free libraries. They remain the property of their respective authors; the licence terms listed below apply independently of this program's own licence.

Component	Used for	Licence
Qt 6.8 (Core, Gui, Widgets, Network, Concurrent, Svg)	application foundation: user interface, event loop, threads, JSON, HTTP, image/SVG display	LGPL v3
libssh2 1.11	SSH connection, authentication, SFTP, PTY, tunnels	BSD-3-Clause
OpenSSL 3 (optional)	crypto backend, only in builds with -DUSE_OPENSSL_BACKEND=ON	Apache-2.0

Qt is linked dynamically: the Qt6*.dll files sit next to the executable and can be replaced with your own compatible build of Qt. Qt's source code is available at https://www.qt.io/download-open-source and https://code.qt.io, libssh2 at https://www.libssh2.org.

The full licence texts are in licenses/. build.ps1 -Package copies that folder and LICENSE into the distributable ZIP, so a released build already satisfies the LGPL requirement to ship the licence text and point to the Qt sources.

Licence

Copyright (C) 2026 Tobias Wagner

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3, as published by the Free Software Foundation. See LICENSE for the full text.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

The third-party components listed above keep their own licences.