SSH MCP Server

What it does

SSH MCP Server bridges your AI assistant and remote Linux/macOS/Windows servers via SSH. Claude (or any MCP-compatible client) can run shell commands, edit files, search code, and manage services on any host reachable over SSH — using private key authentication, no passwords.

Version 2.1 added four token-efficient file-operation tools inspired by Desktop Commander, cutting token usage by 80–90% for common file tasks.

Tools

• remote-ssh — Execute any shell command on a remote host; returns stdout/stderr.
• ssh-edit-block — Replace a specific text block in a remote file (avoids full rewrites).
• ssh-read-lines — Read a slice of a remote file by line range (avoids loading large files).
• ssh-search-code — Grep-style pattern search across a remote path without reading every file.
• ssh-write-chunk — Append or overwrite a chunk of a remote file efficiently.

Installation

// claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ssh": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@idletoaster/ssh-mcp-server@latest"]
    }
  }
}

The server auto-discovers SSH keys in ~/.ssh/ (RSA, ED25519, ECDSA). Set SSH_PRIVATE_KEY env var or pass privateKeyPath per-call to override.

Supported hosts

Confirmed: Claude Desktop, Cursor. Any MCP-compatible client using stdio transport should work.