Mosh with Zsh

The SSH session dies. Your train goes underground. The Wi‑Fi drops. Your work stops cold.

Mosh with Zsh changes that.

Mosh (Mobile Shell) replaces SSH for remote access. It keeps your session alive through network drops, IP changes, and long sleeps. Combine it with Zsh, the powerful Unix shell, for a fast, resilient, and customizable remote terminal. You get persistent sessions, instant keystroke response, and the full power of your shell configuration without fragile connections.

Mosh uses UDP instead of TCP, resynchronizing state instead of replaying lost packets. The result: no freezing while waiting for the network. With Zsh, you still have completion, history, theming, and plugins—whether your link is solid or intermittent. The moment your connection returns, your shell is right where you left it. No reconnections. No reauthentication.

To set up Mosh with Zsh, install both on your local and remote systems. On Debian or Ubuntu, sudo apt install mosh zsh. On macOS, brew install mosh zsh. Change your default shell with chsh -s /bin/zsh, or whichever path Zsh uses on your system. Mosh requires the remote machine to have the mosh-server binary installed and reachable over UDP ports 60000‑61000. Connect with mosh user@host and enjoy a responsive, uninterrupted terminal experience.

Mosh with Zsh is ideal for developers working across unstable links, SSH users tired of dropped sessions, and anyone who values speed in remote workflows. It offers a real improvement in productivity by removing the friction of fragile connections while keeping the rich environment of Zsh.

Resilient remote dev environments are no longer optional. See Mosh with Zsh running in minutes on hoop.dev and keep building without losing your flow.