Remote Targets

Keel supports multiple Docker targets — local or remote via SSH tunnel.

Config

{
  "targets": {
    "local": { "host": "127.0.0.1" },
    "ec2": {
      "host": "1.2.3.4",
      "ssh_user": "ubuntu",
      "ssh_key": "~/.ssh/id_ed25519",
      "ssh_jump": "ec2-user@bastion.example.com",
      "external_ip": "1.2.3.4",
      "port_bind": "0.0.0.0",
      "description": "AWS EC2 Ubuntu"
    }
  },
  "default": "local"
}

Fields

Field	Description
`host`	IP address or hostname
`ssh_user`	SSH user for remote targets (omit for local)
`ssh_key`	Path to SSH private key (supports `~/`)
`ssh_jump`	Bastion/jump host for multi-hop SSH
`external_ip`	External IP used by `keel hosts setup`
`port_bind`	Bind interface for ports — `127.0.0.1` (default) or `0.0.0.0`
`description`	Human-readable target label
`default`	Root-level field — default target name

Switching targets

keel target ec2      # switch to remote
keel start           # commands now execute on ec2 via SSH
keel target local    # switch back

For remote targets, an SSH tunnel is opened automatically, forwarding the remote Docker socket to a local Unix socket (/tmp/keel-docker-<target>.sock). The tunnel is monitored with automatic reconnection and exponential backoff — a live status dot in the topbar shows the connection state via SSE.