Sessions live in folders in the Session Manager. Double-click to connect. Right-click for Connect, Properties…, Apply BBS Settings…, Duplicate and Delete…; right-click a folder to make a new session in it, select everything in it or apply the BBS settings to all of it. Ctrl+click selects several sessions; Properties… then changes only the settings you edit, in all of them.

File → New Session… opens a three-step wizard (protocol, connection details, name and folder). Turn the wizard off in Global Options to go straight to Session Options. File → Save Session As… saves the connection in the current tab.

View → Split Left/Right (Ctrl+Shift+E) and View → Split Top/Bottom (Ctrl+Shift+O) split the active pane, so several sessions show at once. Click a pane to type in it; it gets a blue border. Drag the bar between panes to resize them; each session gets its own size. Choosing a tab that is already on screen moves to its pane; any other tab, and new sessions, open in the active pane. View → Close Pane and View → Single Pane undo the split.

Every setting for a session is in Session Options, grouped in pages:

• Connection: name, protocol, host, port, user name, folder and description.
• SSH2: engine, key file and key generator, certificate, authentication order, jump host, proxy command, algorithms, agent forwarding, compression and extra OpenSSH options.
• Forwarding: local (L), remote (R) and SOCKS (D) port forwards, forwarding-only sessions and X11.
• Local Shell, Serial, Telnet and RLogin settings.
• Logon: pre-connect command, remote command, expect/send pairs, an initial Enter and a logon script.
• Terminal: terminal type, size, scrollback, resize behaviour, ANSI-BBS, iCE colours, line wrap.
• Appearance: colours (each picker opens in its own window with a Close button), VGA font, font family and size, cursor, character set and tab title.
• Input, Behaviour, Highlighting, Key Mappings, Logging, Buttons and File Transfer.

The built-in engine (libssh) is the default. It checks the server's host key against ~/.ssh/known_hosts and asks in the terminal before trusting a new one; a changed key is refused with a warning. It tries your SSH agent, the key file you chose (asking for its passphrase) and ~/.ssh keys, then keyboard-interactive and password logins, in the order set under Authentication order. It reads ~/.ssh/config unless you tick Ignore ~/.ssh/config.

The built-in engine also does:

• X11 forwarding (Forwarding page): remote X programs show on your desktop. The server only ever sees a made-up cookie; Saltbush swaps in the real one. Without “Trust X11 clients” it uses an untrusted cookie, like ssh -X.
• Agent forwarding (SSH2 page, Linux): the server can use your SSH agent's keys, for example to log in onward.
• OpenSSH certificates (SSH2 page): set the certificate file (id_ecdsa-cert.pub); the key file next to it is used. RSA, ECDSA and Ed25519 certificates work in the built-in engine.
• Kerberos (GSSAPI) (SSH2 page): log in with your Kerberos ticket from kinit, and optionally pass it on to the server.
• Compression.

• Jump hosts (SSH2 page): user@host:port, or several separated by commas. Saltbush logs in to each in turn; each hop has its own host-key check and login, using the session's keys. The SFTP browser works through jump hosts too.
• Extra OpenSSH options (SSH2 page, one per line, without -o): about 40 are handled by the built-in engine, for example ServerAliveInterval, ServerAliveCountMax, ConnectTimeout, Ciphers, KexAlgorithms, HostKeyAlgorithms, MACs, StrictHostKeyChecking, UserKnownHostsFile, IdentityFile, IdentitiesOnly, ProxyJump, LocalForward, RemoteForward and DynamicForward. They win over the fields on the page.
• Use FIPS-approved algorithms only (SSH2 page): key exchange, ciphers, MACs and key types are limited to FIPS-approved ones, RSA keys must be 2048 bits or more and Ed25519 keys are refused with a clear message. The page shows whether OpenSSL's FIPS provider is active on this computer. This limits algorithms; Saltbush itself is not a FIPS 140 validated module.

Sessions that need an option the built-in engine does not handle (and agent forwarding on Windows) use the OpenSSH client automatically, and the terminal names the option; and you can choose the OpenSSH client for any session under SSH2 → SSH engine. Passwords are never saved.

File → Log Session… starts and stops a log. Session Options → Logging can start one on connect, with a file-name template (%S session, %H host, %Y-%M-%D date and more), raw or plain-text logs, timestamps, a line prefix, a new file at midnight and connect/disconnect messages. Logs are readable only by you.

Tools → Button Bars… makes rows of buttons that send text or run an action; choose a bar per session (Buttons page) or for every session (Global Options). Highlighting and Key Mappings are tables: Add entry / Add mapping adds a row, the small buttons move a row up or down or remove it. A highlighting row has the word or pattern, a colour (click the swatch for a picker, or type a name or #hex) and a Regex box. For a key mapping press the key button and then the keys, choose the action, and type the text to send for send and sendline. Mistakes are shown under the row.

Options → Global Options → Sync keeps your sessions the same on every computer. Tick Sync sessions with other computers through a shared folder and choose a folder that Nextcloud, Syncthing, Dropbox or a network share keeps the same everywhere, then do the same on each computer with the same folder. Changes move between computers within a few seconds; Sync Now syncs straight away.

Synced: sessions and their folders, credential user names, button bars and the default session. Not synced: passwords (set them on each computer in Tools → Credentials) and settings that belong to one computer: local shell, serial port, key and certificate files, known_hosts, proxy command, pre-connect command, logon script and log and transfer folders. If two computers change the same session, the newer change wins. Use a folder only you can write to.