1. Give every host a place, then stop looking for it
Start by getting everything into one list. Import from this PC… on the Connections page finds hosts in your SSH config file, saved .rdp files and Windows' recent Remote Desktop connections, and the rest are quick to add by hand, web interfaces included. A server's management controller can sit there too: you can reach Dell iDRAC and its virtual console as a saved tab, without putting it on the internet.
Then sort them. A group per cluster, site or customer keeps related hosts together, and tags such as prod, backup or windows-vm cut across groups for filtering. After that, press Ctrl+K and type part of a name to connect to anything. The list syncs to every PC you sign in on. The help page on hosts and sessions explains the Hosts tab's search, folders and favorites.
2. Save the layout you keep rebuilding
If you open the same four things every morning, stop opening them. Tabs on the Connections page sit side by side in one, two, three, four, six or eight panes, and Save this layout as a workspace… remembers which hosts go where. Open and connect all brings it back in one go, or open it without connecting and click into each as you need it.
A few useful ones: a cluster workspace with each node's terminal, a web interface next to the dashboards it relates to, or a troubleshooting layout with the logs of several servers at once. The split view help lists the shortcuts, such as Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+8 to jump between panes.
3. Write it once, run it everywhere
Anything you type on more than one server belongs in a saved script. Keep it in the terminal's Scripts & History panel, then choose Run on hosts…, tick the hosts (or select all) and run. It works on up to 8 hosts at a time, with a timeout for each, and gives you each host's output and result in one list, with a button to run it again on just the ones that failed. The homelab maintenance night checklist uses it for a round of updates, one node at a time.
For something interactive, turn on Broadcast instead: what you type goes to the SSH tabs you pick. For Windows PCs running the RemoteAccessApp Agent, see running a script on many PCs.
4. Copy server to server, not server to laptop to server
Moving a backup, an ISO or a release between servers by downloading it first doubles the wait and fills your disk. A transfer tab copies from one saved host straight to another, streaming through your PC with nothing saved locally, and neither server needs the other's password. Verify checks each copy, and SFTP copies pick up where they stopped if the connection drops. Getting a new ISO from one host to the next this way is part of the evening in one app for your whole homelab.
Sending the same files to several servers? Upload to servers… (Ctrl+Shift+U) does them all at once. The server-to-server copy guide has the steps.
5. A health check in a glance, not a session
Before logging in to poke around, look. Dashboard on an SSH tab shows live CPU, memory, load, disks, network and the busiest processes, read over SSH with read-only commands and nothing installed. Disks from 90% full are flagged. On a Docker or Podman host, Containers shows what's running and lets you restart a container, follow its log or open a shell in it.
Put a few dashboards in a workspace from workflow 2 and you have a quick view of the whole lab. The dashboard reads Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Windows servers with OpenSSH and PowerShell; it can't read ESXi.
Putting them together
- Hypervisors: the guide to Proxmox, VMware and KVM hosts, with Proxmox VE, ESXi, KVM and Hyper-V in detail.
- Containers: Docker and Podman hosts.
- Small boxes: Raspberry Pi and small Linux servers.
If you run a homelab, the free homelab management tool page brings all of this together, along with remote desktop for the lab's Windows and Linux PCs. New posts like this one go up on the RemoteAccessApp blog.
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