ConnectBot is a Secure Shell client for Android that lets you connect to remote servers over a cryptographically secure link.
The easiest way to get ConnectBot is to install from Google Play Store. If you have installed from a downloaded APK, Google Play Store can upgrade your installed version to the latest version. However, once it has upgraded you can't install a version from the releases on GitHub anymore (due to key rotation that upgrades the package signature to a more secure algorithm).
ConnectBot can be downloaded from releases on GitHub. There are two versions:
google— for a version that uses Google Play Services to handle upgrading the cryptography provideross— includes the cryptography provider in the APK which increases its size by a few megabytes.
The ConnectBot app uses these libraries to provide its functionality:
- ConnectBot Terminal — the terminal emulator used by the app is also created and maintained by the ConnectBot author, Kenny Root.
- ConnectBot SSH (cbssh) — a Kotlin SSH client library for authentication, interactive shells, SFTP, and port forwarding.
- ConnectBot Telnet (cbtelnet) — a Kotlin Telnet client library with coroutine-based sessions.
ConnectBot is most easily developed in Android Studio. You can import this project directly from its project creation screen by importing from the GitHub URL.
To compile ConnectBot using gradlew, you must first specify where your
Android SDK is via the ANDROID_SDK_HOME environment variable. Then
you can invoke the Gradle wrapper to build:
./gradlew build
ConnectBot uses GitHub Actions
for continuous integration. The workflow is defined in
.github/workflows/ci.yml.
In general, simply running ./gradlew build should cover all the
checks run in the GitHub Actions continuous integration workflow, but you can
run GitHub Actions workflows locally using nektos/act.
This requires Docker to be installed and running.
To run the main CI workflow (ci.yml):
act -W .github/workflows/ci.yml
main develops 1.12 and publishes to Play alpha. branch/1.11 receives
maintenance fixes; exact v1.11.x tags publish to Play beta for testing before
manual promotion to production in Play Console. Branch pushes on maintenance
are not published. Cherry-pick applicable fixes forward without replacing the
version tag filter on either branch.
Stable Android codes remain major * 10000000 + minor * 100000 + patch * 1000
plus commits since the version tag. Patch numbers are limited to 0–49 and the
commit distance to 0–999. The fixed, annotated v1.12.0-alpha anchor starts at
11150000 and allows 0–49999 subsequent commits. v1.12.0 starts at 11200000.
The Gradle build fails if a range is exhausted or an unsupported anchor is used.
Do not move the alpha anchor or create alpha.2/beta/RC anchors: those would reset
the commit counter. Published histories must not be rewritten.
For example, v1.11.2 is 11102000, alpha plus 125 commits is 11150125,
and v1.12.1 is 11201000. The app's existing Git-derived version names and
flavor suffixes are retained. Alpha installations cannot downgrade to 1.11;
test maintenance on an installation that has not upgraded to 1.12.
Run ./gradlew :app:checkAppVersioning for allocation boundary checks. Generate
version files under app/build/outputs/app_versioning/ for both flavors with:
./gradlew :app:generateAppVersionInfoForGoogleRelease :app:generateAppVersionInfoForOssRelease
Before pushing the cutover, deploy the shared publisher's beta routing, configure
play-beta for main-only deployments, run the signer's OIDC setup with
--enable-beta --apply, and enable PLAY_BETA_ENABLED. Inspect current Play
track codes first: maintenance must remain below 11150000 and existing alpha
codes must be below the first new alpha build. Both tracks retain testing-only
permissions; production promotion stays manual. Push main and the annotated
alpha anchor together after the publisher is ready. When both main and a tag
build the same commit, the exact version tag owns publication.