Remote localhost

A lightweight macOS menu bar app for managing local SSH port-forwarding tunnels — the GUI equivalent of running:

ssh -N -L <localPort>:<bindHost>:<remotePort> <user>@<remoteHost> -p <sshPort>

without keeping a terminal window open.

Features

• Menu bar only — no dock icon, no main window.
• Multiple named tunnels, each with its own host, ports, and credentials.
• Auth via SSH key (with optional passphrase) or password — connects non-interactively, no terminal prompts.
• Configurable remote bind host (127.0.0.1, localhost, or a custom address).
• Live status per tunnel with logs for debugging auth/forwarding failures.
• Optional auto-start per tunnel on app launch.
• "Clear Stale" cleans up dead tunnels and orphaned SSH processes.
• Tunnels persist across launches.

Requirements

• macOS 13.0+
• Xcode 15+ to build

Build & Run

1. Open RemoteLocalhost.xcodeproj in Xcode.
2. Select the RemoteLocalhost scheme and hit Run (or Archive for a Release build).
3. Click the globe icon in the menu bar, then + to add a tunnel.

Or just grab the latest build from Releases — built and published automatically by CI on every vX.Y.Z tag.

Notes

• SSH runs with StrictHostKeyChecking=no for convenience with hosts you already trust.
• Passwords/passphrases are written briefly to a one-shot, 0700-permissioned SSH_ASKPASS script in /tmp, then deleted.
• Tunnel configs (including passwords/passphrases) are stored in plaintext via UserDefaults — prefer SSH key auth if that's a concern.