What is the best way to open remote files with emacs and ssh

Question

I connect to the remote machine with ssh [email protected]. When I need to open a file in the remote machine I do, e.g.,

emacs /usr/share/nginx/html/index.html

and that opens the index.html file in the shell. I noticed that some emacs commands work but others do not work. For instance, C-w does not work; M-< does not work. How can I fix this, and what is the best way to work with emacs and ssh?

I found this question but it made me more confused.

Answer 1

I generally prefer opening remote files from a local Emacs instance.

While running Emacs on your local machine, opening a remote file over ssh is not much different than opening any other file besides a slightly different syntax.

For ssh, you can type C-x C-f. Now, in the minubuffer you want to type /ssh:user@host:/path/to/file (Note that tab completion will work once you start typing a path. Also note the leading / character). See the full docs here.

In your example, that would be:

C-x C-f /ssh:[email protected]:/usr/share/nginx/html/index.html 

Now you can edit remote files over ssh in Emacs while using your local configuration and any installed packages, etc...

Answer 2

Just to add to the answer above, you can write shortcuts for machines that you use frequently:

(defun connect-remote ()   (interactive)   (dired "/[email protected]:/")) 

This will open a dired buffer on a remote machine. You can navigate this buffer as you would a local one.

If you have set up ssh keys for the remote machine, you don't even have to enter the password.

If you have a bunch of remote machines, you can give some recognizable name to each function, e.g. connect-cupcake, connect-kitkat and use smex package for completion.