Using Kitty as SSH connection manager

[tdram]

First of all, I have not made this. I have used AI to script it.

I am a tmux user and I use its popup feature to show SSH connections (as a SSH connection manager) and I connect to lot of remote sessions.

What if I can replicate the same using kitty overlay and so I asked Gemini to script it. This takes existing connections from your user's ssh config file and shows it with preview (with fzf to type and connect quickly). All tabs have their title taken from the ssh
connection file.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# This function targets the selected host block inside ssh config and extracts attributes with icons
render_ssh_preview() {
  local target_host="$1"
  local config_file="$HOME/.ssh/config"

  if [ -z "$target_host" ] || [ ! -f "$config_file" ]; then
    echo " No metadata configuration found."
    return
  fi

  # Extract the block starting from the matching Host up until the next Host entry
  local host_block
  host_block=$(awk -v host="$target_host" '
        awk_match = (tolower($1) == "host" && $2 == host) {
            print;
            while (getline > 0) {
                if (tolower($1) == "host") exit;
                print;
            }
        }
    ' "$config_file")

  # Helper function to extract a specific configuration value cleanly
  get_val() {
    echo "$host_block" | grep -i "^[[:space:]]*$1[[:space:]]" | awk '{$1=""; print $0}' | xargs
  }

  local ip_addr=$(get_val "HostName")
  local user_name=$(get_val "User")
  local port_num=$(get_val "Port")
  local proxy_cmd=$(get_val "ProxyJump\|ProxyCommand")

  # Fallbacks for defaults if omitted in config
  [ -z "$user_name" ] && user_name="$(whoami)"
  [ -z "$port_num" ] && port_num="22"

  ---- Render Dashboard UI ---
  echo -e "\n  Configuration Metadata for:"
  echo -e "  \033[1;36m🏷️  $target_host\033[0m"
  echo -e "  ───────────────────────────────────────────"
  echo -e "  \033[1;34m🌐 Remote IP/DNS :\033[0m  ${ip_addr:-$target_host}"
  echo -e "  \033[1;32m👤 Connect As    :\033[0m  $user_name"
  echo -e "  \033[1;35m🔌 Target Port   :\033[0m  $port_num"

  if [ -n "$proxy_cmd" ]; then
    echo -e "  \033[1;31m⛓️  Proxy/Bastion :\033[0m  $proxy_cmd"
  fi
  echo -e "  ───────────────────────────────────────────"
}

# Export the function so fzf can invoke it via a subshell string execution
export -f render_ssh_preview

# Self-invocation check: If arguments are passed, it runs the preview handler instead
if [ "$1" = "--preview" ]; then
  render_ssh_preview "$2"
  exit 0
fi

# Expand width inside margins to host a beautiful dual-pane view
HOST=$(grep -i "^Host " ~/.ssh/config | awk '{print $2}' | grep -v '*' | fzf \
  --prompt=" 🚀 Connect: " \
  --pointer="▶" \
  --marker="✓" \
  --border=rounded \
  --border-label=" Infrastructure Connection Directory " \
  --border-label-pos=top \
  --layout=reverse \
  --margin=15%,25% \
  --info=inline-right \
  --color="dark,border:#61afef,label:#61afef,prompt:#e5c07b,pointer:#e06c75" \
  --preview="$0 --preview {}" \
  --preview-window="right:55%:border-left")

# Terminal Connection Launch
if [ -n "$HOST" ]; then
  kitty @ launch --type=tab --tab-title "  $HOST" kitten ssh "$HOST"
fi

Save this file as kitty_ssh_manager.sh and add the execute bit to the file by chmod +x kitty_ssh_manager.sh

Then in kitty.conf, add the below line:

map ctrl+A launch --type=overlay ~/.config/kitty/kitty_ssh_manager.sh
map f2 select_tab

Make sure to enable remote control in kitty.conf.

I used the key ctrl+A to open the overlay and connect to remote servers. Also I mapped F2 to select_tab to directly connect to the specific tab.