Graphic front ends for SSH

Conclusions

The graphical SSH front ends discussed in this article all do their jobs without problems, but there are significant differences in the features each front end offers (see Table 1). PuTTY shows its age visually as well as in terms of the functions it offers: You will not find tabs for open connections or integrated virtual terminal windows. In addition, accessing remote systems with hopelessly antiquated protocols such as rlogin or Telnet also seems obsolete.

Table 1

Graphical SSH Front End Features

 

Ásbrú Connection Manager

EasySSH

PuTTY

License

GPLv3

GPLv3

MIT License

Functions

Multiple simultaneous connections

Yes

Yes

No

Built-in virtual terminals

Yes

Yes

No

Clusters

Yes

No

No

Groups

Yes

Yes

No

Authentication via key pair

Yes

Yes

Yes

X11 forwarding

Yes

Yes

Yes

EasySSH lets users establish connections very quickly and without detours via detailed settings dialogs, but – as a Flatpak application – it is very slow. More importantly, EasySSH has a significant security hole caused by storing the connection data without encryption in plain text on the client, effectively inviting attackers to steal the access credentials.

Ásbrú Connection Manager offers the most balanced and state-of-art, graphical SSH front end. Its modern interface and ability to work with clusters makes Ásbrú Connection Manager the tool of choice for professional use.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News