Reach your machines by name
vpncli connects one machine to another by name — no public IP, no port forwarding, no ssh account to set up on the far side. You log in once with your Monolex identity, and every machine you own becomes reachable.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ONE LOGIN → ALL YOUR MACHINES │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ your laptop ──► vpncli shell my-server │
│ ──► vpncli exec my-server "git pull" │
│ ──► vpncli mosh my-server (roaming) │
│ ──► vpncli cp file my-server:/path │
│ │
│ No ssh key on my-server. No open ports. Just your login. │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Four ways to connect
shellA full interactive terminal on the remote machine.
execRun one command, capture its output, get its exit code. Scriptable.
moshA roaming terminal that survives Wi‑Fi changes and suspend/resume.
tunnelForward a raw TCP/UDP port — run ssh, scp, git, or a database over P2P.
How it's different from ssh
┌───────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ssh │ vpncli │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ account + key on the │ one Monolex login covers every machine │
│ target machine │ │
│ needs a reachable IP │ works behind NAT — punches through │
│ / port forwarding │ automatically (peer‑to‑peer) │
│ one channel (a shell) │ shell + one‑shot + roaming + tunnel + cp │
└───────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┘
Under the hood, vpncli builds a direct peer‑to‑peer link between your two machines and encrypts it end to end. A coordination server introduces the two machines to each other, then steps out of the way — it never sees your data. See How it works and Security.