TransIT AI
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How-tos

Connect to a device

This page covers opening an SSH session to a device that’s already in your inventory. If the device isn’t there yet, see Add a device first.

Three equivalent ways

Use whichever your hands are already on:

  1. Right-click the device row in the sidebar → Connect.
  2. Double-click the device row.
  3. Click the device row to focus it, then press Enter.

All three open a new tab at the top of the work area and focus it.

What happens during connect

  1. Transit AI resolves the device’s auth profile, fetches the credential from its backend (OS keyring, SSH agent, 1Password, etc.), and authenticates over SSH.
  2. On first connect to a host, Transit AI prompts you to confirm the host-key fingerprint (TOFU — trust on first use). Accepting pins the fingerprint to your known_hosts.toml file. Rejecting aborts the connect.
  3. After auth, a PTY shell opens. The tab appears in the strip at the top of the work area and is focused.

Connecting to the same device more than once

Each Connect opens a new tab. Multiple sessions per device are allowed. Tab labels disambiguate as vEX1, vEX1 (2), vEX1 (3), etc.

If the connection fails

Common failures:

  • Authentication failed: the credential in your auth profile is wrong or expired. Open the auth profile (key icon in the sidebar → the row → Edit) and re-enter the secret.
  • Host-key mismatch: the device’s fingerprint has changed since the last connect. Transit AI refuses to connect; you must edit ~/.config/transit/known_hosts.toml by hand to remove the old pin. This is intentional — a silently changed host key is what a MITM attack looks like.
  • Connection refused / timeout: networking. Check the host / port, your VPN, and any corporate proxy.
  • Cipher unsupported: the device offers only weak crypto (e.g. SHA1 KEX on old Cisco IOS-XE images). Transit AI shows a per-device opt-in dialog with the offered algorithms. Click Connect anyway to accept once, or tick Remember to mark the device as legacy-crypto in your inventory.

Disconnecting

Two ways:

  • Type exit / logout in the terminal. The remote closes the channel; the tab stays in place with a “session ended” banner so you can still scroll the final output. Press Enter in the ended pane to reconnect (see Reconnect a closed session), or click the X on the tab to close it.
  • Click Disconnect in the pane header (or click the X on the tab). A confirm dialog asks before closing a still-connected session.