Remote sessions

One Connecto can show and drive the terminals of another. Leave the agents running on a desktop, and check in from a laptop.

The two machines connect directly, encrypted end to end. If a direct path cannot be found, traffic goes through a relay, still encrypted. The other Mac appears in your sidebar under HOSTS, and behaves like a project whose terminals are that machine's.

Pair two Macs

On the Mac you want to reach

1. Open Settings and find PAIR A DEVICE.
2. Click Pair a device. A six-digit code appears, such as 482 913.

The code is valid for two minutes and for one device. Pairing turns on Let other machines connect to this one and leaves it on.

On the Mac you are sitting at

1. Click Add host in the sidebar.
2. Type a name for the machine and the six digits, then click Pair.

That is all. This Mac now holds a device key in its secret store (see Where secrets are kept), and the other Mac lists it under PAIRED DEVICES, where you can Revoke it at any time.

What you can do remotely

• Watch any terminal live, type into it, and use the mouse.
• Add, rename, restart and close terminals.
• Reconnect after a drop without losing output: the host keeps a buffer for each terminal.

Not available on a remote host yet: its history, transcripts, and Continue.

From the host's menu in the sidebar you can Connect, Disconnect, Rename host… and Forget host.

How it is protected

• Off by default. A Mac accepts connections only after you turn remote access on.
• The code is hard to guess and useless afterwards. It works once, any attempt to use it burns it, and code requests are rate-limited.
• One remote user at a time.
• Pause applies. While the host is paused, remote typing, resizing, terminal changes and pairing are refused.
• It is in the audit log. A remote user is recorded separately from you. Attaching is logged; typed input is logged as a count and a hash, never as text.
• The connecto command is never reachable remotely. A remote user drives terminals, not the bridge between them.

The relay

Settings → RELAY holds the relay's address and, if the relay asks for one, an access token. The default is https://relay.connecto.studio. Leave the address empty to allow direct connections only.

The relay helps two machines find each other and carries traffic when they cannot connect directly. It cannot read what passes through it.

To use a relay of your own, see Run your own relay. Set the same relay address on both machines, with its token.

Advanced: an address and an SSH key

Instead of a code, you can authorize an SSH key you already have.

1. On the host, under ADVANCED: KEYS THAT MAY CONNECT, add the public key with Allow this key, and copy the machine's address with Copy address.
2. On the other Mac, click Add host, choose Advanced: use an address and an SSH key, and paste the address.
3. Compare the fingerprint on the CONFIRM THIS MACHINE screen with the one the host shows, then choose They match: connect.

The key is used through your ssh-agent. Connecto never reads the private key.