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Version: 18.x

Remote Development on Beams with your IDE

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This guide shows you how to open a beam in your IDE over SSH. Your editor stays on your machine, while your code, terminal, and extensions run on the beam. VS Code, Cursor, and Zed are supported.

How it works​

Under the hood this is SSH through the Teleport proxy. tsh config writes an OpenSSH config that sends connections for your cluster through the proxy and authenticates with your Teleport certificate, so from your IDE's point of view the beam is an ordinary SSH host.

Once connected, the IDE installs a small headless server on the beam and talks to it over that SSH session. The server is the half of the editor that touches files: it reads and writes the beam's filesystem, runs your terminals, hosts extensions such as language servers and debuggers, and streams the results back to the editor window on your machine. Only the window runs locally.

The tsh beams ide command is a convenience wrapper around this flow. It resolves the beam, builds the beams@<uuid>.<cluster-name> SSH target, and launches your editor with the right remote SSH arguments.

Beams are ephemeral

Beams are automatically purged after 24 hours, and everything on the beam's filesystem is deleted with them. Files you edit in your IDE live on the beam, not on your machine. Commit and push your changes, or copy them somewhere durable, before the beam expires. Run tsh beams ls to see when each beam expires.

Prerequisites​

CLI Tools

Beams require tsh version 18.8.0 or newer. To install tsh, visit Download Client Tools, select your platform, and choose "CLI Client Tools" in the Download Type menu.

IDE remote development on beams requires Teleport and tsh version 18.12.0 or newer.

  • A logged-in tsh. Run tsh status to confirm.
  • An OpenSSH client. Linux and macOS ship one. On Windows, use the built-in OpenSSH client.
  • One of the supported editors with its remote SSH support installed:
    • VS Code with the Remote - SSH extension.
    • Cursor, which ships its own Remote - SSH extension.
    • Zed, which has remote development built in.
  • A running beam.

Step 1/4. Set up your SSH config​

Your IDE reaches the beam over SSH, so your OpenSSH config needs the Teleport connection settings for your cluster. Generate them with tsh config, passing the address of your Teleport proxy, and append the output to your SSH config file:

tsh config --proxy proxy-address >> ~/.ssh/config

If you have never used SSH on this machine, the .ssh directory does not exist yet and the command fails with No such file or directory. Create the directory first, then run the command above again:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh

You only need to do this once per cluster. If you use Beams in more than one cluster, run it once for each.

Step 2/4. Find your beam​

List your beams to find the one you want to open:

tsh beams ls

The ID column is the beam's alias - a short, human-friendly name. To get the beam's stable UUID, use the JSON output:

tsh beams ls --format json

You can refer to a beam by either its alias or its UUID.

Step 3/4. Configure VS Code​

If you use VS Code, turn off Remote.SSH: Use Local Server before connecting. Open Settings, search for @ext:ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh, and uncheck Use Local Server. With this setting on, VS Code requests a shell without a PTY on the first connection to a new host, which Teleport does not support, and the connection hangs.

Cursor and Zed don't have this setting, so skip this step if you use either of them.

Step 4/4. Connect​

Open the beam in your IDE with a single command, passing its alias or UUID:

tsh beams ide beam

If you don't specify an editor, tsh asks you to choose one from a list. To skip the prompt, pass the editor with the --ide flag:

tsh beams ide beam --ide=vscode

The supported values are vscode, cursor, and zed. A new window opens with a remote SSH session into the beam's home directory.

To use the same editor every time without passing the flag, set the TELEPORT_BEAMS_IDE environment variable, for example in your shell profile:

export TELEPORT_BEAMS_IDE=vscode

On Windows, run setx TELEPORT_BEAMS_IDE vscode and open a new terminal for the change to take effect. The --ide flag takes precedence over the environment variable.

The editor prompt needs an interactive terminal. In scripts or other non-interactive environments, pass --ide or set TELEPORT_BEAMS_IDE.

The command needs your editor's command-line launcher (code, cursor, or zed) on your PATH. If it isn't found, tsh tells you which one is missing.

If VS Code does not have the Remote - SSH extension installed yet, it prompts you to install it and reload the window. After the reload, the connection to the beam continues. On the first connection to a new host, VS Code may ask for the platform of the remote host. Choose Linux.

Verify​

Your IDE opens a new window connected to the beam. Open a terminal in that window and you should see a prompt showing you logged in as the beams user on the beam.

Troubleshooting​

  • Permission denied (publickey). Your Teleport certificate has expired. The log shows something like:

    [email protected]: Permission denied (publickey).
ERROR: exit status 255

    Log in again with tsh login --proxy=proxy-address and reconnect.

  • Connection times out. Your SSH config has no Teleport entry for this cluster, so the SSH client is trying to reach the beam directly instead of through the proxy. Repeat Step 1 for the cluster the beam belongs to. To check without connecting, run ssh -G beams@beam-uuid.cluster-name and confirm the output includes a proxycommand line that runs tsh.

  • Logged into the wrong cluster. Run tsh status to check your active cluster. If it isn't the one the beam belongs to, the connection fails with an authentication or access-denied error. Log in to the right cluster with tsh login --proxy=proxy-address.

  • VS Code hangs while connecting. Check that Remote.SSH: Use Local Server is off, as described in Step 3, and reconnect.

  • Bad configuration option on Windows. Your SSH config file has the wrong encoding, usually because it was written from PowerShell. Open %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config in Notepad, choose File > Save as, set Encoding to UTF-8, and save over the file. This fixes the encoding and keeps your existing SSH settings.

  • The beam is gone. Beams are ephemeral and expire. Confirm the beam is still running with tsh beams ls.