revive-ssh — the Revive SSH server agent

Terminal sessions that survive disconnects, sleeping phones and server restarts, shared between your phone (Revive SSH app) and any terminal on the server. Runs as a regular user, opens no ports: everything goes through your existing sshd.

Install

curl -fsSL https://get.vendo.bot/revive-ssh/install.sh | sh

or from the signed package repositories:

# Debian / Ubuntu
curl -fsSL https://get.vendo.bot/revive-ssh/revive-ssh.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/revive-ssh.gpg >/dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/revive-ssh.gpg] https://get.vendo.bot/revive-ssh/apt stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/revive-ssh.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install revive-ssh

# Fedora / RHEL / Rocky / Alma
sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/yum.repos.d/revive-ssh.repo https://get.vendo.bot/revive-ssh/rpm/revive-ssh.repo
sudo dnf install revive-ssh

# openSUSE
sudo zypper addrepo https://get.vendo.bot/revive-ssh/rpm/revive-ssh.repo && sudo zypper --gpg-auto-import-keys install revive-ssh

Repository key: Revive SSH repository, RSA 4096, ID 7EB65DC6B62D78BA. One static binary (amd64, arm64); its own updates are signed (Ed25519) and verified before they run. The packages are only a starting point: newer signed versions also update themselves into ~/.local/share/revive-ssh. Snap and AUR (revive-ssh-bin) packages are in preparation; until they are published, use install.sh on Arch and other systems.

Manual install without curl | sh:

curl -fsSLo revive-ssh https://get.vendo.bot/revive-ssh/latest/revive-ssh-linux-amd64   # ARM: -linux-arm64
chmod +x revive-ssh && mkdir -p ~/.local/bin && mv revive-ssh ~/.local/bin/

Language

The agent speaks English, or Polish when LANG/LC_ALL starts with pl. Notifications it sends itself (long commands, AI tool hooks) use each phone's language.

Everyday use

revive-ssh

Shows a menu of your sessions (name, what runs in it, last activity):

Revive SSH — sessions
  1) web                  npm                    10-31 19:45  b2472ce0e6
  n) new session
  q) QR code — pair a phone
  x) exit

a number attaches this terminal to that session;
n starts a new one: asks for a name, offers to create ~/<name> and start there, and for a command to run at start; it can be saved as a template, shown later as s1, s2… (stored in ~/.config/revive-ssh/templates.json);
q shows the pairing QR code for the phone.

The very first run (no sessions, no paired phone) goes straight to the QR code. Scan it in the app (Add server → Scan QR code), or scan it with the phone's camera.

Detach from a session with Ctrl+\ — it keeps running. Open the same session in the app later and everything that happened meanwhile is there, scrollable.

Commands

Command	What it does
`revive-ssh new [name] [--dir DIR] [--cmd COMMAND]`	new session (optionally named, started in DIR, with COMMAND typed into the fresh shell) and attach
`revive-ssh connect [--history] <name\\|id>`	attach this terminal to a session (`--history`: replay everything, not just the screen); revives one interrupted by a reboot
`revive-ssh ls`	sessions with name, foreground program, last activity
`revive-ssh kill <name\\|id>`	end a session
`revive-ssh share <session> <user> [--view]` / `share`	let another user of this machine join your session (`--view`: watch only); no arguments: who has access and who is connected
`revive-ssh unshare <session> [<user>]`	remove access (no user — everybody); connected users are dropped at once
`revive-ssh handover <session> <user> [--yes]`	offer the session to another user for 10 min; they get its history and directory, yours ends
`revive-ssh connect <owner>/<session>` / `take <owner>/<session>`	join a session shared with you / take over one handed to you
`revive-ssh pair [--host H[,H2]] [--port P] [--local] [--name N]`	pair a phone (QR); addresses and port are detected, `--local` leaves out the public IP, `--name` sets the server name shown in the app
`revive-ssh devices` / `revoke <id\\|all>`	paired phones / remove a phone's key
`revive-ssh devices add --key K [--name N] [--platform P] [--json] [--expires UNIX [--view] [--confirm ID.TOKEN]]`	authorize another device key (the app does this when pairing a computer, `docs/device-pairing.md`); with `--expires`: a browser key until then, Revive sessions only, `--view` = watch only, `--confirm` = this server vouches to the relay that the browser may reach it, from its own address (`docs/browser-access.md`)
`revive-ssh notify [--title T] TEXT`	push notification to paired phones
`revive-ssh hooks [status\\|install\\|uninstall] [tool…\\|all]`	AI tools: push when they finish or ask for permission (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Antigravity, Cursor, opencode, Aider)
`revive-ssh status` / `version`	version, updates, sessions, devices
`revive-ssh update [--check] [--channel stable\\|beta] [--disable\\|--enable] [--rollback]`	signed self-update (also checked automatically at most every 6 h; an admin can block it for everyone with `autoupdate = false` in `/etc/revive-ssh/policy.conf`)

Phone and computer, one session

Several clients can be attached at once; the screen size follows the one you typed on last, so a phone in your pocket does not squeeze the session on your monitor. Typical day: start a long job or a coding agent in revive-ssh new web at the desk, continue on the phone on the go, revive-ssh connect web back at the desk.

Sharing with another user of the machine

revive-ssh share web patryk --view   # patryk: revive-ssh connect lukasz/web
revive-ssh handover web patryk       # patryk: revive-ssh take lukasz/web

Shared: the other user works in your session as you (or only watches with --view); attached clients see who joins and leaves, and every client hears on which devices the session is open (“Session open on 2 devices: iPhone, Windows · PC”). Handed over: they get a new session of their own with your history and directory, and yours ends — running programs do not move. The kernel checks who connects (SO_PEERCRED); no ports, no passwords, and never for root. Details: docs/sharing.md.

While a handover offer is pending, your crontab holds one line (@reboot … revive-ssh boot-check # revive-ssh handover): if the server restarts before the other user takes the session, your phone gets a push saying so, with the command to offer it again. The line goes away by itself once no offer is pending; the rest of your crontab is left untouched. Without cron there is no such notification (noted in ~/.local/state/revive-ssh/agent.log).

Notifications

make build; revive-ssh notify "build: $?"
revive-ssh hooks install        # every AI tool found on this account
revive-ssh hooks install codex  # or just the ones you name; `revive-ssh hooks` shows the state

hooks install adds one entry to each tool's own config (Claude Code ~/.claude/settings.json, Codex ~/.codex/hooks.json, Gemini CLI ~/.gemini/settings.json, Antigravity ~/.gemini/config/hooks.json, Cursor ~/.cursor/hooks.json, opencode ~/.config/opencode/plugins/revive-ssh.js, Aider ~/.aider.conf.yml), keeps a backup and leaves your own hooks alone; hooks uninstall removes only ours. Codex asks you to approve a new hook once (/hooks).

Long commands notify by themselves: when a program that ran at least 2 minutes finishes while no phone or terminal is attached, you get "Zakończono: make (3 min 12 s)"; the tap opens that session. Change or turn off with notify_long = 300 / notify_long = 0 in ~/.config/revive-ssh/config.

Notifications are end-to-end encrypted: the phone gives the agent its own key over SSH, the agent encrypts the title and text (AES-256-GCM), and our push relay, Apple and Google only see a generic "Revive SSH: new notification". The relay stores neither tokens nor text. Revoking a phone (revive-ssh revoke) also stops its notifications.

Files

~/.local/state/revive-ssh/ — session history (survives restarts; history = off in ~/.config/revive-ssh/config keeps it in RAM only), push tokens and keys (push.json, 0600), the app's diagnostic log (app.log, only if you turn on sending it in the app)
~/.config/revive-ssh/ — config, session templates
~/.ssh/authorized_keys — one line per paired phone, removed by revive-ssh revoke

Uninstall

revive-ssh hooks uninstall
revive-ssh revoke all
rm -f ~/.local/bin/revive-ssh; rm -rf ~/.local/share/revive-ssh ~/.local/state/revive-ssh ~/.config/revive-ssh

If it came from a package, remove the package as well (sudo apt remove revive-ssh, sudo dnf remove revive-ssh, sudo zypper remove revive-ssh).

Privacy and terms

License

Business Source License 1.1 — see LICENSE. Free for production use except a competing offering; becomes Apache 2.0 on 2030-10-30.