⌨️ CLI

The Nexterm CLI (nt) lets you connect to your servers straight from the terminal – no browser needed. It uses the same authentication and entry system as the web UI, so all your servers, folders, and identities are already there.

This is useful when you just want to quickly SSH into a machine without opening the web interface, or when you need to run a one-off command on a remote server from a script or CI pipeline.

Installation

Build the CLI from source (requires Rust):

cd cli
cargo build --release

The binary will be at cli/target/release/nt. Move it somewhere in your $PATH:

cp cli/target/release/nt /usr/local/bin/

Getting Started

First, log in to your Nexterm server:

nt login

You'll be prompted for the server URL and can choose between entering a one-time code in the web UI or opening the browser directly. Once authenticated, the session is saved locally and you're good to go.

Commands

Listing Servers

nt ls

Shows all your servers in a tree, just like the sidebar in the web UI. Only terminal-based entries (SSH, Telnet, PVE LXC, PVE Shell) are shown.

You can filter by folder or tag:

nt ls --folder "Home-Lab"
nt ls --tag "production"

Or get the raw data as JSON:

nt ls --json

Connecting to a Server

nt connect <server>

The <server> argument can be a numeric entry ID (like #8 from nt ls), an exact name, or even a partial name — the CLI will fuzzy-match it for you. If the entry has multiple identities attached, you'll be asked to pick one.

To run a single command instead of opening an interactive session:

nt connect my-server -- uptime

The command's stdout and stderr are printed directly, and the exit code is forwarded. This makes it easy to use in scripts:

nt connect 8 -- "df -h" | grep /dev/sda1

Searching

nt search "mail"

Fuzzy-searches across all your servers by name and IP address, then lets you pick one from the results to connect to. The results are ranked by match quality and presented as an interactive list.

You can also pass a command to run on the selected server:

nt search "gateway" -- "systemctl status nginx"

Quick Connect

nt recent

Shows all your servers in a list and lets you pick one to connect to. Handy when you don't remember the exact name or ID but want to browse through everything quickly.

Port Forwarding

nt forward <server> --local 8080 --port 3000

Lets you access a remote port on your local machine, similar to ssh -L. In this example, the server's port 3000 becomes available at 127.0.0.1:8080 on your machine.

By default, the remote host is 127.0.0.1 (the server itself). You can forward to a different host on the server's network:

nt forward my-server --local 5432 --remote 10.0.0.5 --port 5432

This is useful for accessing databases, internal services, or admin panels that aren't directly exposed. The tunnel stays open until you press Ctrl+C.

Configuration

nt config show

The CLI stores its configuration in ~/.config/nexterm/config.json. You can view or change individual settings:

nt config set server-url https://nexterm.example.com
nt config get server-url

Key	Description
server-url	The URL of your Nexterm server
accept-invalid-certs	Set to true to allow self-signed SSL certificates

Logging Out

nt logout

Clears the stored session token. You'll need to run nt login again to reconnect.