nexus/README.md

Nexus Terminal

A native desktop client for SSH, Telnet, RAW TCP, Serial, VNC, RDP, IRC, GitHub and local terminals — with secure credential handling and a focused, multi-session workflow.

Nexus Terminal helps you manage many connections at once, keep terminal work organised, and move files with confidence. It is a single Rust application with no webview, so it starts quickly and stays responsive under heavy terminal output.

Highlights

• SSH, Telnet, RAW TCP, Serial, VNC, RDP, IRC, GitHub and local terminal sessions in one app
• Tabbed sessions with split panes, pinning and drag-to-reorder
• SFTP browser with drag-and-drop uploads and a permission-aware directory picker
• SSH jump hosts, SOCKS5/HTTP proxies, local and remote port forwards, agent forwarding and TOTP auto-fill
• Serial consoles with full line settings (baud, data bits, parity, stop bits, flow control)
• Native VNC and RDP viewers; RDP with NLA, certificate pinning, and SOCKS5/HTTP proxy or SSH tunnel routes
• Disconnected overlay with one-click reconnect, and auto-reconnect with backoff
• Broadcast input, snippets, trigger rules and terminal search
• Session recording (asciicast v2) and playback
• Secure credential storage with the OS keychain first and an encrypted vault fallback

Install

macOS (Homebrew):

brew install --cask andydixon/tap/nexusterminal

Debian, Ubuntu (22.04 and later):

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://repo.dixon.cx/dixon.gpg | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/dixon.gpg >/dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/dixon.gpg] https://repo.dixon.cx/apt stable main" |
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dixon.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install nexusterminal

Fedora, RHEL, openSUSE:

sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/yum.repos.d/dixon.repo https://repo.dixon.cx/rpm/dixon.repo
sudo dnf install nexusterminal        # or: sudo zypper install nexusterminal

Arch Linux:

curl -fsSL https://repo.dixon.cx/dixon.asc | sudo pacman-key --add -
sudo pacman-key --lsign-key C22FF7330668417C62C7A304CBC7951D7F2234D1
printf '\n[dixon]\nServer = https://repo.dixon.cx/arch/$arch\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/pacman.conf
sudo pacman -Sy nexusterminal

Windows, or any platform by hand: download a zip from GitHub Releases and check it against SHA256SUMS. Builds aren't code-signed yet, so macOS and Windows ask you to confirm the first launch.

Quick start

1. Launch Nexus Terminal.
2. Click + at the bottom of the sidebar (or press Cmd+N / Ctrl+N) and create a connection profile.
3. Click Create & Connect to save it and open a session in a new tab. Afterwards, click the profile in the sidebar to connect.

Prefer a one-off session? Use Cmd+Shift+Q / Ctrl+Shift+Q to quick connect, or click Local Machine in the sidebar for a local shell.

If a session drops, use the Reconnect button in the disconnected overlay.

Documentation

• Product overview: docs/overview.md
• Quick start (shareable): docs/quick-start.md
• User manual: docs/user-manual.md
• Illustrated user guide (PDF): docs/guide/nexus-guide.pdf, built from LaTeX in docs/guide (make there; tools/screenshots.sh regenerates the screenshots)
• Build and release: docs/build-and-release.md

Keyboard shortcuts

All shortcuts use Cmd on macOS and Ctrl on Windows/Linux.

macOS Shortcut	Windows/Linux Shortcut	Action
Cmd + K	Ctrl + K	Open command palette
Cmd + N	Ctrl + N	New connection
Cmd + W	Ctrl + W	Close current tab
Cmd + Tab	Ctrl + Tab	Next tab
Cmd + Shift + Tab	Ctrl + Shift + Tab	Previous tab
Cmd + 1–9	Ctrl + 1–9	Switch to tab by number
Cmd + ,	Ctrl + ,	Open settings
Cmd + F	Ctrl + F	Find in terminal
Cmd + Shift + D	Ctrl + Shift + D	Split pane right (side by side)
Cmd + Shift + E	Ctrl + Shift + E	Split pane down (top and bottom)
Cmd + Shift + R	Ctrl + Shift + R	Toggle session recording
Cmd + Shift + B	Ctrl + Shift + B	Toggle broadcast input mode
Cmd + Shift + S	Ctrl + Shift + S	Open snippet library
Cmd + Shift + Q	Ctrl + Shift + Q	Quick connect
F11	F11	Toggle fullscreen

Building from source

Nexus Terminal is a Rust workspace in rust/. With rustup installed:

cd rust
cargo run --release

See docs/build-and-release.md for platform prerequisites, tests and release packaging.

License

Copyright (C) 2026 Andy Dixon.

Nexus Terminal is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation. It 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 license for details.

Third-party crates (including the patched copies in rust/vendor/) keep their own licenses, which are listed in each crate.