I used to be chained to my laptop all day just to manage my self-hosted servers or fix minor issues, and I hated waiting until I got back home to handle things. I wanted the freedom to manage my infrastructure from anywhere straight from my phone without trusting third-party cloud relays.

​I built VPSPilot as a native Kotlin Android SSH client for my own daily workflow. A few things I focused on:

  • Zero Proxies / Direct Connection: No middleman servers or cloud accounts—your phone talks directly to your own hosts over standard SSH.

  • ​Hardware Key Isolation: SSH private keys are locked inside Android’s hardware-backed Keystore/TEE chip so they aren’t exposed or handed over to anyone else.

  • ​Task Automation & Secret Handling: Automates my routine sysadmin tasks and custom workflows so I don’t have to keep typing repetitive commands on a phone keyboard, while keeping secrets from being typed raw into the console.

​AI Disclosure: Built by me as a solo project for my own daily server management workflow. I drove the core architecture, handled all testing, and managed the device/Keystore implementation, while using an AI assistant for syntax help, debugging routine exceptions, and cleaning up documentation.

  • sadawyOPEnglish
    2·
    14 hours ago

    Thanks! Yeah, if you’re already on Ansible that’s the better tool for a fleet, no argument. This is more for people with 2 or 3 VPSes who want to fix something quickly from their phone. The workflows aren’t just blind macros though: they check the current state first, show the exact commands, test configs (like sshd -t) and snapshot files so you can roll back. But “easier for people scared of Ansible” is honestly a pretty good description of who I built it for 😄