---
name: "ttyd"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "ttyd"
version: "1.7.7-3"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/ttyd"
---

# ttyd(1)

Share your terminal over the web

## NAME

ttyd - Share your terminal over the web

## SYNOPSIS

**ttyd** \[options\] \<command\> \[\<arguments...\>\]

## DESCRIPTION

ttyd is a command-line tool for sharing terminal over the web that runs in \*nix and windows systems, with the following features:

- •

  Built on top of Libwebsockets with libuv for speed

- •

  Fully-featured terminal based on Xterm.js with CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and IME support

- •

  Graphical ZMODEM integration with lrzsz support

- •

  Sixel image output support

- •

  SSL support based on OpenSSL

- •

  Run any custom command with options

- •

  Basic authentication support and many other custom options

- •

  Cross platform: macOS, Linux, FreeBSD/OpenBSD, OpenWrt/LEDE, Windows

## OPTIONS

\-p, --port \
       Port to listen (default: 7681, use `0` for random port)

\-i, --interface \
       Network interface to bind (eg: eth0), or UNIX domain socket path (eg: /var/run/ttyd.sock)

\-U, --socket-owner\
       User owner of the UNIX domain socket file, when enabled (eg: user:group)

\-c, --credential USER\[:PASSWORD\]\
       Credential for Basic Authentication (format: username:password)

\-H, --auth-header \
       HTTP Header name for auth proxy, this will configure ttyd to let a HTTP reverse proxy handle authentication

\-u, --uid \
       User id to run with

\-g, --gid \
       Group id to run with

\-s, --signal \
       Signal to send to the command when exit it (default: 1, SIGHUP)

\-w, --cwd \
       Working directory to be set for the child program

\-a, --url-arg\
       Allow client to send command line arguments in URL (eg: http://localhost:7681?arg=foo&arg=bar)

\-W, --writable\
       Allow clients to write to the TTY (readonly by default)

\-t, --client-option \
       Send option to client (format: key=value), repeat to add more options, see **CLIENT OPTIONS** for details

\-T, --terminal-type\
       Terminal type to report, default: xterm-256color

\-O, --check-origin\
       Do not allow websocket connection from different origin

\-m, --max-clients\
       Maximum clients to support (default: 0, no limit)

\-o, --once\
       Accept only one client and exit on disconnection

\-q, --exit-no-conn\
       Exit on all clients disconnection

\-B, --browser\
       Open terminal with the default system browser

\-I, --index \
       Custom index.html path

\-b, --base-path\
       Expected base path for requests coming from a reverse proxy (eg: /mounted/here, max length: 128)

\-P, --ping-interval\
       Websocket ping interval(sec) (default: 5)

\-6, --ipv6\
       Enable IPv6 support

\-S, --ssl\
       Enable SSL

\-C, --ssl-cert \
       SSL certificate file path

\-K, --ssl-key \
       SSL key file path

\-A, --ssl-ca \
       SSL CA file path for client certificate verification

\-d, --debug \
       Set log level (default: 7)

\-v, --version\
       Print the version and exit

\-h, --help\
       Print this text and exit

## CLIENT OPTIONS

ttyd has a mechanism to pass server side command-line arguments to the browser page which is called **client options**:

```
-t, --client-option     Send option to client (format: key=value), repeat to add more options
```

## Basic usage

- •

  `-t rendererType=canvas`: use the `canvas` renderer for xterm.js (default: `webgl`)

- •

  `-t disableLeaveAlert=true`: disable the leave page alert

- •

  `-t disableResizeOverlay=true`: disable the terminal resize overlay

- •

  `-t disableReconnect=true`: prevent the terminal from reconnecting on connection error/close

- •

  `-t enableZmodem=true`: enable ZMODEM ⟨https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMODEM⟩ / lrzsz ⟨https://ohse.de/uwe/software/lrzsz.html⟩ file transfer support

- •

  `-t enableTrzsz=true`: enable trzsz ⟨https://trzsz.github.io⟩ file transfer support

- •

  `-t enableSixel=true`: enable Sixel ⟨https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel⟩ image output support (Usage ⟨https://saitoha.github.io/libsixel/⟩)

- •

  `-t titleFixed=hello`: set a fixed title for the browser window

- •

  `-t fontSize=20`: change the font size of the terminal

## Advanced usage

You can use the client option to change all the settings of xterm defined in ITerminalOptions ⟨https://xtermjs.org/docs/api/terminal/interfaces/iterminaloptions/⟩, examples:

- •

  `-t cursorStyle=bar`: set cursor style to `bar`

- •

  `-t lineHeight=1.5`: set line-height to `1.5`

- •

  `-t 'theme={"background": "green"}'`: set background color to `green`

to try the example options above, run:

```
ttyd -t cursorStyle=bar -t lineHeight=1.5 -t 'theme={"background": "green"}' bash
```

## EXAMPLES

ttyd starts web server at port 7681 by default, you can use the -p option to change it, the command will be started with arguments as options. For example, run:

```
ttyd -p 8080 bash -x
```

Then open http://localhost:8080 with a browser, you will get a bash shell with debug mode enabled. More examples:

- •

  If you want to login with your system accounts on the web browser, run `ttyd login`.

- •

  You can even run a none shell command like vim, try: `ttyd vim`, the web browser will show you a vim editor.

- •

  Sharing single process with multiple clients: `ttyd tmux new -A -s ttyd vim`, run `tmux new -A -s ttyd` to connect to the tmux session from terminal.

## SSL how-to

Generate SSL CA and self signed server/client certificates:

```
# CA certificate (FQDN must be different from server/client)
openssl genrsa -out ca.key 2048
openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -key ca.key -subj "/C=CN/ST=GD/L=SZ/O=Acme, Inc./CN=Acme Root CA" -out ca.crt
# server certificate (for multiple domains, change subjectAltName to: DNS:example.com,DNS:www.example.com)
openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout server.key -subj "/C=CN/ST=GD/L=SZ/O=Acme, Inc./CN=localhost" -out server.csr
openssl x509 -sha256 -req -extfile <(printf "subjectAltName=DNS:localhost") -days 365 -in server.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -CAcreateserial -out server.crt
# client certificate (the p12/pem format may be useful for some clients)
openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout client.key -subj "/C=CN/ST=GD/L=SZ/O=Acme, Inc./CN=client" -out client.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in client.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -CAcreateserial -out client.crt
openssl pkcs12 -export -clcerts -in client.crt -inkey client.key -out client.p12
openssl pkcs12 -in client.p12 -out client.pem -clcerts
```

Then start ttyd:

```
ttyd --ssl --ssl-cert server.crt --ssl-key server.key --ssl-ca ca.crt bash
```

You may want to test the client certificate verification with [*curl*(1)](/curl/1.md):

```
curl --insecure --cert client.p12[:password] -v https://localhost:7681
```

If you don't want to enable client certificate verification, remove the `--ssl-ca` option.

## Docker and ttyd

Docker containers are jailed environments which are more secure, this is useful for protecting the host system, you may use ttyd with docker like this:

- •

  Sharing single docker container with multiple clients: docker run -it --rm -p 7681:7681 tsl0922/ttyd.

- •

  Creating new docker container for each client: ttyd docker run -it --rm ubuntu.

## Nginx reverse proxy

Sample config to proxy ttyd under the `/ttyd` path:

```
location ~ ^/ttyd(.*)$ {
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:7681/$1;
}
```

## AUTHOR

Shuanglei Tao \<tsl0922@gmail.com\> Visit https://github.com/tsl0922/ttyd to get more information and report bugs.