MacOS – Free SSH GUI client with ssh tunnel support for Yosemite

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Is there any free SSH GUI client for Mac OS X? Coming from Windows I would be happy with something as simple as Putty.

Features:

  1. Free
  2. Connection Manager
  3. SSH tunnel support
  4. Yosemite ready (and retina pretty)
  5. Currently active (development not dead)
  6. Support for private key authentication

I’m aware of similar questions posted here but I haven’t found a good alternative covering the requirements in items 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Best Answer

Most OS X users don't use "ssh GUIs" because OS X ships with a very good Terminal application. This is unlike Windows where the cmd.exe or even a PowerShell are not friendly command line interfaces to remote servers.

In OS X, you can just fire up Terminal.app and ssh from the command line with:

ssh <myhost>

You can use a more advanced terminal application like iTerm2 and it will allow you to save "profiles" that, when called up, automatically run a set of commands in the terminal for you. You can use these to automatically start ssh connections (which can be interactive terminal sessions or stunnels):

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You can start and stop stunnels from the command line as well -- after all, these are just ssh connections that open a local port and forward requests to a remote server. For example:

ssh -f user@personal-server.com -L 2000:personal-server.com:25 -N

And you're done.

Private key authentication schemes are supported by the ssh command line that ships, default, with any OS X version.

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