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The Bast logo inside the boxd card. Bast is an open-source SSH host picker and key manager for the terminal, built on OpenSSH. It reads your existing SSH config, manages keys, and syncs hosts from cloud providers into one list. The boxd sync provider imports your boxd machines as SSH hosts. From Bast’s TUI or CLI you can then create, stop, start, restart, fork, and delete them. Bast works through the boxd CLI on your computer and stores no boxd token.

Set up

1

Install Bast

boxd support ships in the first Bast release after v0.11.0. Then the installer gets it:
Until then, build it from the main branch. It needs Go 1.26:
2

Install the boxd CLI and sign in

Bast calls boxd from your PATH or ~/.local/bin. Set BOXD_CLI to use a binary somewhere else.
3

Sync your machines

Or open bast, press 4 for Sync, select boxd, and choose Sync now. Your machines show up in the host list.
4

Connect

Or pick the machine in the host list and press Enter.

What gets synced

Bast syncs every region of the CLI’s active organization (boxd auth switch). Set the org filter in the boxd submenu to sync a list of organizations instead. Each machine becomes a host named boxd_<region>_<name>, grouped as boxd/<org>/<region>. The hosts live in ~/.ssh/bast/sync/boxd/config. Stopped machines stay hidden until you press .. The boxd CLI keeps a Host entry for each machine in ~/.ssh/config. Bast copies its host name, port, user, and key, so a Bast host connects the same way as ssh <name>.boxd. SFTP in Bast’s Files tab takes the same path.

Connect to a sleeping or stopped machine

  • Standby or hibernated: the SSH connection wakes the machine. Bast makes no extra call.
  • Stopped: Enter starts the machine, syncs again, and then connects.

Manage machines

<host> is the Bast host or the machine’s name. --vcpu picks one of boxd’s machine sizes: 1, 2, 4, or 8 vCPUs with 4 GiB each. Leave it out for your organization’s default. A machine from a snapshot keeps the snapshot’s size. A fork copies the disk, memory, and running processes, in the same region. bast boxd new only creates machines in an organization Bast already syncs.

Use an API key

Bast can sync and manage machines with an API key instead of a signed-in CLI:
The CLI writes SSH entries only for a signed-in session, so with a key alone bast connect doesn’t work. Run boxd auth login to connect. Bast’s boxd guide covers the rest, including the boxd submenu, auto-sync, and every key in the TUI.