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questions

Asked and answered.

13 questions people ask before they install. Anything else, ask us through the support form.

Do I need Tailscale or a VPN?
No. A machine you can already SSH to, on your LAN or at a public address, joins by its host or IP over Direct, the route every install starts with. Tailscale and VPN tunnels are for machines you can't reach that way. Pick one per machine and run them together.
If I use Tailscale, do I need its app or a VPN profile?
No. tmuxnet runs its own Tailscale node inside the app. Start the sign in from the app, log in on Tailscale's page, and this phone joins your tailnet as its own device, named tmuxnet, while the app is open. You need a Tailscale account, not the Tailscale app, and no VPN profile ever appears in Settings.
Does my machine need anything?
tmux and an SSH server, nothing else. On a Mac that means Remote Login turned on. macOS or Linux, with any login shell, fish and tcsh included. tmuxnet installs nothing and runs no daemon. Claude Code and Codex are optional, and plain shell sessions work too.
Does it work with Codex and Claude Code?
Yes. The list reads both as running, needs input, idle or error, and shows Claude Code as waiting while a shell or agent it started is still running. Any other pane shows as a shell, at its prompt or running a command it names, and you can attach and type in all of them.
How do I type control keys on a phone?
A key bar under the terminal, there with the keyboard up or down, carries esc, tab, the arrows, sticky ⌃ and ⌥, and keys like ⌃C, with the keys the pane's state needs first. When the pane offers a completion, one tap on the bar takes it. Hold any key for the rest, or arrange the bar and add your own keys in Settings. Every key reaches the pane byte for byte, so TUIs behave as they do on a desktop.
Can I send an agent more than text?
Yes. The composer writes the whole prompt before it goes. Attach up to four photos or one screen recording, marked up on the phone, and they are copied to the pane's own machine with their path in the prompt. Type @ to pick from the pane's files, or reuse a prompt you sent before or pinned.
Can it see machines on two different tailnets?
Yes. Each tailnet runs its own node inside the app, so several stay signed in and connected at once. Work and personal never take turns, and their sessions share the one list.
What about machines behind a VPN?
tmuxnet supports multiple VPN protocols. Paste your tunnel's config file as a network, or for some protocols type its fields, and tmuxnet runs that tunnel inside the app, beside your tailnets. Several tunnels can be up at once. iOS allows one system VPN at a time. That limit is about system profiles, and tunnels inside the app never install one, so nothing else on the phone is routed through them. A tunnel signs in with keys or a client certificate, over UDP. Username and password logins and TCP aren't supported.
How much tmux control do I get?
Attach, switch, create sessions and windows, split, rename and kill, mapped exactly onto tmux. Switching detaches and the session stays alive. Only a Kill you confirm destroys one. No prefix keys to memorize.
What happens when I background the app?
Your sessions keep running on your machine. A notification, Control Center or a call leaves the pane attached. When you switch to another app tmuxnet detaches, and when you come back, or reopen it after iOS closed it, it reattaches to the pane you were in.
Is my terminal data sent anywhere?
No. Terminal traffic is SSH between your phone and your machines, and no tmuxnet server is in that path. A screen leaves the phone only when you add it to a report or a correction you send, and then only as a picture you check first, with host and session names already masked. Usage counts and crash reports are off until you turn them on, and never carry a screen, a keystroke or a session name.
What if the status shown is wrong?
Open Fix app & status from the pane's menu in the list, or from the status on its screen, and set it yourself. It applies at once and stays on this phone. Turn on Send corrections to the developer there and we get it too, with the screen as a masked picture if you add it.
Is there an Android or web version?
No. tmuxnet is for iPhone and iPad, on iOS 18.1 or later. There is no Android, web or Mac version. This site is the support channel. If that changes, you will read it here.