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Concepts

The following are the core concepts that describe a ShellHub deployment. As you set up and manage ShellHub, you will encounter these terms frequently. It is important to understand these concepts before reading further in the documentation.

SSH gateway​

The SSH gateway is a server that acts as a bridge between your device and the internet. It allows you to establish an SSH connection to the device using a unique identifier called the SSHID.

Device​

The device is an internet-connected device that you want to control, such as a computer, server or a single-board computer. To use the ShellHub system, the device must have the ShellHub Agent installed on it.

Agent​

The agent is software that enables the device to connect to the SSH gateway and receive commands from the remote user. Once the ShellHub Agent is installed on the device, it establishes a connection to the SSH gateway, and the device becomes accessible over the internet using the SSHID.

SSHID​

An SSHID (Secure Shell Identifier) is a unique identifier for a device that is connected to the ShellHub system. It is used to identify the device in the ShellHub network and to establish an SSH connection to the device through the SSH gateway.

The SSHID consists of three parts: the namespace, hostname, and server address:

  • The namespace is a way to organize devices into logical units.
  • The hostname is the device hostname identifier, which is used to distinguish between different devices within the same namespace.
  • The server address is the address of the ShellHub server instance (SSH gateway).

An example of an SSHID is: demo.device-1@cloud.shellhub.io

In this example, demo is the namespace identifier, device-1 is the hostname identifier, and cloud.shellhub.io is the server address identifier. To connect to the device using the SSHID, you would use an SSH client and specify the SSHID as the hostname. For example: ssh user@demo.device-1@cloud.shellhub.io.