mosh/man/mosh.1

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.TH MOSH 1 "February 2012"
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.SH NAME
mosh \- mobile shell with roaming and intelligent local echo
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mosh
.RI [ options ]
[--]
[user@]host
[command...]
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBmosh\fP (mobile shell) is a remote terminal application that
supports intermittent connectivity, allows roaming, and provides
speculative local echo and line editing of user keystrokes.

Compared with \fBssh\fP, \fBmosh\fP is more robust \(em its
connections stay up across sleeps and changes in the client's IP
address \(em and more responsive, because the protocol is tolerant of
packet loss and the client can echo most keystrokes immediately,
without waiting for a network round-trip.

\fBmosh\fP uses \fBssh\fP to establish a connection to the remote host
and authenticate with existing means (e.g., public-key authentication
or a password). \fBmosh\fP executes the unprivileged \fBmosh-server\fP
helper program on the server, then closes the SSH connection and
starts the \fBmosh-client\fP, which establishes a long-lived datagram
connection over UDP.

To improve responsiveness, \fBmosh\fP runs a predictive model of the
server's behavior in the background, trying to guess the effect of
each keystroke on the screen. It makes predictions for normal typing,
backspace, and the left- and right-arrow keys. When it is confident,
\fBmosh\fP displays the predictions without waiting for the
server. The predictive model must prove itself anew on each row of the
terminal and after each control character, so \fBmosh\fP avoids
echoing passwords or non-echoing editor commands.

By default, \fBmosh\fP shows its predictions only on high-latency
connections and to smooth out network glitches. (On longer-latency
links, the predicted cells are underlined until confirmed by the
server.) Occasional echo mistakes are corrected within a network
round-trip and do not cause lasting effect.

\fBmosh\fP does not support X forwarding or the non-interactive uses
of SSH, including port forwarding or sshfs. \fBmosh\fP works through
typical client-side network address translators but requires UDP to
pass between client and server. By default, \fBmosh\fP uses the ports
between 60000 and 61000, but allows the user to request a particular
UDP port instead.

\fBmosh\fP will do its best to arrange a UTF-8 character set locale on
the client and server. The client must have locale-related environment
variables that specify UTF-8. \fBmosh\fP will pass these client
variables to the \fBmosh-server\fP on its command line, but in most
cases they will not need to be used. \fBmosh-server\fP first attempts
to use its own locale-related environment variables, which come from
the system default configuration (sometimes /etc/default/locale) or
from having been passed over the SSH connection. But if these
variables don't call for the use of UTF-8, \fBmosh-server\fP will
apply the locale-related environment variables from the client and try
again.

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \fIcommand\fP
Command to run on remote host. By default, \fBmosh\fP executes a login shell.

.TP
.B \-\-client=\fIPATH\fP
path to client helper on local machine (default: "mosh-client")

.TP
.B \-\-server=\fICOMMAND\fP
command to run server helper on remote machine (default: "mosh-server")

The server helper is unprivileged and can be installed in the user's
home directory.

.TP
.B \-\-ssh=\fICOMMAND\fP
OpenSSH command to remotely execute mosh-server on remote machine (default: "ssh")

An alternate ssh port can be specified with, \fIe.g.\fP, \-\-ssh="ssh -p 2222".

.TP
.B \-\-predict=\fIWHEN\fP
Controls use of speculative local echo. WHEN defaults to `adaptive'
(show predictions on slower links and to smooth out network glitches)
and can also be `always` or `never'.

The MOSH_PREDICTION_DISPLAY environment variable controls this setting
permanently and can adopt the same three values.

Even on `always', \fBmosh\fP will only show predictions when it is
confident. This generally means a previous prediction on the same row
of the terminal has been confirmed by the server, without any
intervening control character keystrokes.

.TP
.B \-a
Synonym for \-\-predict=always

.TP
.B \-n
Synonym for \-\-predict=never

.TP
.B \-p \fINUM\fP, \-\-port=\fINUM\fP
Use a particular server-side UDP port, for example, if this is the
only port that is forwarded through a firewall to the
server. Otherwise, \fBmosh\fP will choose a port between 60000 and
61000.

.SH ESCAPE SEQUENCE

The escape sequence to shut down the connection is \fBCtrl-^ .\fP
(typically typed with Ctrl-Shift-6, then a period).

.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

.TP
.B MOSH_PREDICTION_DISPLAY
Controls local echo as described above.

.TP
.B MOSH_TITLE_NOPREFIX
When set, inhibits prepending "[mosh]" to window title.

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mosh-client (1),
.BR mosh-server (1).

Project home page:
.I http://mosh.mit.edu

.br
.SH AUTHOR
mosh was written by Keith Winstein <mosh-devel@mit.edu>.
.SH BUGS
Please report bugs to \fImosh-devel@mit.edu\fP. Users may also subscribe
to the
.nh
.I mosh-users@mit.edu
.hy
mailing list, at
.br
.nh
.I http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mosh-users
.hy
.