vmctl ssh

SSH into a VM.

Synopsis

vmctl ssh [OPTIONS] [NAME]

Arguments

Argument	Description
`NAME`	VM name (optional; inferred from VMFile.kdl if only one VM is defined)

Options

Option	Type	Description
`--user`	string	SSH username (overrides VMFile)
`--key`	path	Path to SSH private key
`--file`	path	Path to VMFile.kdl (for reading ssh user)

Key Resolution

vmctl searches for a private key in this order:

Auto-generated key in VM's work directory (id_ed25519_generated)
Key specified with --key
~/.ssh/id_ed25519
~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
~/.ssh/id_rsa

User Resolution

--user CLI flag
user field in VMFile's ssh block
Default: "vm"

vmctl first verifies SSH connectivity using libssh2 (with a 30-second retry timeout), then hands off to the system ssh binary for full interactive terminal support. SSH options StrictHostKeyChecking=no and UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null are set automatically.

For user-mode networking, vmctl connects to 127.0.0.1 on the forwarded host port. For TAP networking, it discovers the guest IP via ARP.

Examples

# SSH into the only VM in VMFile.kdl
vmctl ssh

# SSH into a specific VM
vmctl ssh myvm

# Override user and key
vmctl ssh myvm --user root --key ~/.ssh/special_key

vmctl Documentation