Features

Connectivity

SSH

Fast, reliable SSH via paramiko with password and key-based authentication, host key verification, SSH agent forwarding, and per-session port forwarding (local, remote, and dynamic tunnels). Handles high-throughput output without lag and stays responsive in long-running sessions.

Telnet

Full Telnet support for legacy network devices, console servers, and equipment that still speaks Telnet. Telnet sessions share the same workspace, connection profiles, scripting, and AI assistance as SSH.

Serial Console

Connect directly to network equipment, embedded systems, and infrastructure gear over serial (COM) ports. Configure baud rate, data bits, parity, stop bits, and flow control — or let Auto-Detect probe the port across common settings until it finds one that produces readable output. No more guessing 9600 vs 115200 or whether parity is Even or None.

Local Shell

Open a native local shell in the same workspace as your remote sessions. Uses native PTY on Linux and macOS and ConPTY (via pywinpty) on Windows, so everything behaves the way your OS expects.

Workspace

Tabbed MDI Canvas

Each tab holds an independent canvas of floating, resizable terminal sub-windows. Tile them, cascade them, split them, or focus-jump between them. Mix SSH, Telnet, serial, and local shell sessions on the same canvas — whatever matches the shape of the work.

Session Manager

A left-side dock with a tree of saved sessions organized into folders. Double-click to open. The dock is lockable to the edge with a custom title bar so it can't be torn off by accident.

Button Bar

Per-session quick-command buttons for the keystrokes you type over and over: show run, reload, enable, write memory, whatever your workflow needs. Buttons are stored per saved session, so the right commands follow the right device.

Script Manager

Expect-style automation scripts with a built-in editor (syntax-highlighted), runner, and import/export. Automate repetitive sequences against network devices and servers. Launch it with Ctrl+Shift+S or F5.

Port Forwarding

Configure local, remote, and dynamic SSH tunnels per saved connection. Bring up tunnels alongside the session without leaving the app.

Network Tools

A built-in toolkit under the Network menu for the calculations, conversions, and generators that network engineers reach for constantly — without leaving the application.

IPv4

IPv6

Config

Log Analysis

SSH

Terminal

Full VT Emulation

Terminal rendering is backed by pyte with correct resize semantics, scrollback, and ANSI handling. Output is preserved across resize events and focus changes — no more prompt duplication or stale screen fragments when you tile, cascade, or maximize.

Highlight Rules

Colorize terminal output in real time — errors in red, warnings in amber, interface up/down events, Cisco and networking patterns, syslog levels. Rules live in JSON files, ship with sensible defaults, and can be edited through a built-in GUI editor with live preview. Your edits layer over the bundled defaults without modifying them.

Color Themes

Ten built-in terminal color palettes: Default Dark, Default Light, Solarized Dark, Solarized Light, Dracula, Gruvbox Dark, Nord, Monokai, Tomorrow Night, and Cisco Console. A GUI theme editor (Preferences → Appearance → Edit Themes) lets you rename, duplicate, and live-preview custom palettes. Themes are JSON files — drop-in and portable.

MDI Wallpaper

Set a background image on the canvas. The wallpaper scales cleanly when you maximize, resize, or tile sub-windows — no tiling artifacts, no stale fragments.

Everyday Niceties

AI Assistant

Persistent Right-Side Dock

The AI assistant lives in a dockable panel on the right side of the main window. Chat history persists across session switches and theme changes, so you can walk back through a conversation instead of losing it the moment the dialog closes.

Two Providers

RockTerm supports both Anthropic Claude and OpenAI GPT. Choose your provider, model, and API key in Edit → Preferences → AI Assistant. You bring your own key; RockTerm never proxies your data through a third party.

Context-Aware

Right-click selected terminal output and send it to the assistant along with recent scrollback. Every context block that gets sent to the model is recorded in the chat history as a distinct block right before the user question, so past conversations stay interpretable when you re-open them later.

Quick Prompts and Safety Rails

One-click Explain, Fix Error, and Summarize prompts. Copy Last copies the latest response to your clipboard. Send to Terminal routes text into the active terminal — behind a confirmation dialog so nothing gets typed into a live session by accident. Rate limits, quota exhaustion, and billing errors surface as friendly messages instead of raw HTTP errors.

Theming & UX

Light and Dark UI Themes

Toggle between light and dark UI themes with View → Theme. Changes apply live to every dock, dialog, menu, and terminal — no restart, no stale stylesheets. On Windows 10/11, the title bar darkens to match.

Secret Manager

An AES-encrypted credential vault unlocked with a master password. Saved session credentials are stored in the vault, so you are never trading convenience for plaintext passwords on disk.

Polished Connection Dialog

The New Connection dialog uses accent-tinted icon badges, refined typography, and keyboard-focus rings. Small details, but they make daily use feel like a tool rather than a toy.

Distribution

Microsoft Store

RockTerm ships as a signed MSIX package through the Microsoft Store. Updates are delivered automatically. A free trial is available so you can evaluate the full product before purchasing. One-time purchase — no subscription, no recurring charges.

No Telemetry

RockTerm does not collect usage data, analytics, or crash telemetry. Your sessions, your connections, and your API keys stay on your machine. The only outbound traffic comes from the things you explicitly initiate: the SSH/Telnet/serial sessions themselves, and AI requests you consciously send.