Glossary

The terms you meet in kaiport and in this documentation, from A to Z. Each entry explains the term in a sentence or two and links to the page with the details.

Agent forwarding

Makes your local SSH agent available on the server, so that from there you can reach further hosts with your local keys. Turn it on per connection with Forward SSH agent under Advanced; the Mac App Store version doesn't have it. See Agent forwarding.

AI Pilot

The assistant built into kaiport. It works in the terminal, the transfer view and the editor with the AI provider and model you set up. Part of kaiport Pro. See AI Pilot overview.

App lock

An optional lock: it locks kaiport when it starts, after a period of inactivity and when your computer sleeps. You unlock it with a password, on a Mac also with Touch ID. See Security.

Audit log

A record of every command and file action AI Pilot ran or attempted, with the decision (approved, Autopilot, denied, blocked or error) and the paths it touched. Open it under Settings → AI Pilot → AI audit log; the file is ai-audit.jsonl. See The audit log.

Autopilot

A switch in the AI Pilot panel and in the settings. With Autopilot on, AI Pilot runs commands without asking; potentially dangerous commands still need your approval, and on storage connections deleting, renaming and overwriting always ask. See Autopilot.

Broadcast

Sends your keystrokes to every connected pane of a terminal window at once, for example to run the same command on several servers. Turn it on with Send input to all tabs in the tab bar or the command palette. See Broadcast mode.

Command palette

A search field in the terminal window, opened with ⌘P/CtrlP, for connections, snippets, your command history and actions. See Command palette.

Context window

The amount of text a model can take into account at once. Context & tokens in the AI Pilot panel shows how full it is. When it fills up, kaiport summarizes older messages; New chat starts from scratch. See Context and privacy.

Editor window

Text files you open from the file browser or the transfer view open in an editor window of their own, one per file. It offers syntax highlighting, search and AI Pilot; saving writes the file back. See Editor.

File browser

The panel next to an SSH terminal, opened with ⌘B/CtrlB. It shows the files of the server over SFTP and lets you upload, download, rename and delete. See File browser.

Folder report

An overview AI Pilot creates for a folder tree: file types, sizes and ages, the largest files, possible duplicates and cleanup candidates. See Folder reports.

FTPS

FTP with TLS encryption. Explicit FTPS (AUTH TLS) starts unencrypted, usually on port 21, and then switches to TLS; implicit FTPS is encrypted from the start, usually on port 990. See FTP and FTPS.

Host key

The key an SSH server identifies itself with. kaiport shows its fingerprint (SHA256:…) on the first connection and warns you if it changes later. See Host key check.

Jump host

A server kaiport connects through to reach a server that isn't directly reachable, like ProxyJump in OpenSSH. Also called a bastion host. You choose another saved connection under Jump host (ProxyJump) on the Advanced tab. Part of kaiport Pro. See Jump host.

kaiport Pro

The yearly App Store subscription that adds AI Pilot, jump hosts and unlimited connections to kaiport, and on the Mac also the MCP server, server views and port forwarding. One subscription covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. See Free and kaiport Pro.

Keychain

The protected storage for secrets of your operating system: the Keychain on macOS, DPAPI on Windows and the Secret Service (libsecret) on Linux. kaiport encrypts passwords, passphrases, keys and tokens with it. See Where credentials are stored.

Known hosts

kaiport's list of trusted host keys, one per host and port, separate from ~/.ssh/known_hosts. You review it under Settings → Known hosts; Forget removes an entry, and kaiport asks again on the next connect. See Security.

Passive mode

The FTP mode in which the client opens the data connections to ports the server announces. If a firewall or NAT blocks these ports, listings and transfers fail. See Passive mode.

Passphrase

The password that protects an SSH private key. kaiport asks for it when you connect, or stores it encrypted with the connection. See SSH key.

Path-style addressing

An S3 setting that puts the bucket name into the path of the URL instead of the host name. MinIO, Ceph and many self-hosted servers need it. See Path-style addressing.

Plan

On storage connections, AI Pilot bundles larger changes, such as moving or deleting many files, into a plan. You review all of its steps and approve them at once. See Bulk changes as a plan.

Port forwarding

Also called a tunnel: network traffic runs through an SSH connection. Local (-L) makes a service on the server's side available on your computer, Remote (-R) works the other way round, and SOCKS5 (-D) turns the connection into a proxy. Part of kaiport Pro on the Mac. See Port forwarding.

Provider

The service that runs the AI model for AI Pilot, such as Anthropic, OpenAI or a local Ollama server. You choose it under Settings → AI Pilot. See Set up AI Pilot.

Quick connect

The field in the start window for an SSH connection you don't want to save: type user@host:port and click Connect. See Quick connect.

Reconnect automatically

A setting under Settings → Terminal. When a connected session drops, kaiport tries up to three times to reconnect. See Reconnect automatically.

Session restore

With Restore session on, kaiport reopens the terminal windows and tabs of your last session when it starts. See Session restore.

Shell integration

A few lines in your shell's startup file that tell kaiport exactly when a command ends, its exit code and the working directory (OSC 133 and OSC 7). Without them, AI Pilot detects the end of a command heuristically. See Shell integration.

Snippet

A saved command with a name. You add snippets under Settings → Snippets and insert them from the command palette. See Snippets.

SOCKS

A proxy protocol. A dynamic port forward (SOCKS5 (-D)) opens a SOCKS proxy on your computer; programs that use it send their traffic through the SSH server. See Use the server as a SOCKS proxy.

Split pane

A tab divided into several panes, side by side or stacked, each with its own session. See Split panes.

Start window

The window with your saved connections, Quick connect and the Settings. ⌘⇧H/CtrlShiftH brings it back. See The start window.

Terminal window

The window with the tabs your sessions run in, with AI Pilot and the file browser in a panel next to the terminal. See The terminal window.

Transfer view

What FTP, S3, WebDAV and Azure Blob connections open instead of a terminal: your computer on the left, the storage on the right, with drag and drop and a transfer queue. See Transfer view.