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The console gives you a shell on your server inside the browser. Symplax opens the SSH connection for you with the credentials it already holds, so you don’t need a key on the computer you’re using.

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Who can use it

The console is a full shell on the server, usually as root, so only the workspace Owner and Admins can open it. Developers and Viewers don’t see the Console tab at all. See team roles. Access is checked when a session opens and again about every 30 seconds while you type. If someone’s role is lowered, their open sessions close within that window.

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Open a terminal

1

Open the server

Go to Servers and click Manage on the server.
2

Go to the Console tab

The server must be online. If it’s offline, the tab says so and you can’t open a terminal.
3

Start a shell

Press + (New terminal). The shell opens as the SSH user the server was connected with, which is root for most servers.
You can open up to 4 terminals on the same server at once, each in its own tab.

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Toolbar

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Session rules

A shell with no keystrokes for 30 minutes is closed.
If your browser loses its connection briefly, the shell keeps running on Symplax’s side for 60 seconds so you can pick it back up. A long command such as apt upgrade isn’t killed by a short network blip.
If a command prints a huge burst of output at once, the excess is cut off with an [output truncated] notice so your browser tab doesn’t freeze. Redirect big output to a file and read it with less instead.

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Recording

Every session is recorded, both what you type and what the server prints. Recordings are kept for 90 days and then deleted. A recording stops after 2 MB of data in one session.
Anything you type or print in the console ends up in the recording, including passwords and secrets. Avoid printing secrets to the screen. Use environment variables for app secrets.

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Troubleshooting

You’re not an Owner or Admin in this workspace. Ask an owner to change your role, or to run the command for you.
The agent isn’t reporting. See monitoring for what offline means.
Close a terminal tab you no longer need, then open a new one.
Symplax reached the server but couldn’t log in or start a shell. Check that the SSH key or password Symplax uses still works, for example that nobody removed its key from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. See SSH keys.