PilotSSH: manage your server in a few touches

I just released Pilot SSH, a server administration application for iPhone. So, why another SSH application? Aren't there dozens of these already?

I tried a lot of those shell applications, and they felt clunky on a phone. They are fine with a tablet (even more if you use a bluetooth keyboard), but writing commands on a phone's keyboard is not really intuitive. Moreover, the small screen of a phone is not really usable to display the command results.

But I reaaaaally wanted to manage my servers from my phone. Because I am not always in front of my computer. Because I am too lazy to get the laptop from the bag, open it, plug the 3G key or find WiFi, connect over SSH and type a command to restart a crashed web server. Because it would be awesome to be in a bar and say "hold on, I have update my server", open my phone and do it in 3 touches.

So, here it is, Pilot SSH, in all its glory, can out of the box:

• display running processes, the memory they use, and kill them
• show which websites are enabled or disabled in Apache
• display the uptime, halt or reboot the server
• show Apache logs

Pilot SSH process list

But there is more! The application is completely extensible, because it uses scripts stored on the server side, in your home, in ~/.pilotssh. You can totally replace the current scripts, download more from the Github repository, and make your own! The scripts can be written in any language, as long as they return a JSON string conforming to the API.

I already got a contribution soon after the launch, with a script to flush the caches. And I have a lot of ideas for new scripts:

• upgrade a Wordpress website
• display the status of processes managed by Monit
• create/remove users
• Support nginx too
• Display more logs

This is just the beginning, and I expect a lot of impressive ideas from the users of Pilot SSH. I can't wait to see them!

Do you want to try Pilot SSH? Everything you need is on its website!