Remote Server Initialization, Binary Management, and SSH Connection Maintenance in Zed

Depending on the kind of setting you want to make, which settings file you should use: - Project settings should be used for things that affect the project: indentation settings, which formatter / language server to use, etc. - Server settings should be used for things that affect the server: paths to language servers, etc. - Local settings should be used for things that affect the UI: font size, etc. In addition any extensions you have installed locally will be propagated to the remote server. This means that language servers, etc. will run correctly. ## Initializing the remote server Once you provide the SSH options, Zed shells out to `ssh` on your local machine to create a ControlMaster connection with the options you provide. Any prompts that SSH needs will be shown in the UI, so you can verify host keys, type key passwords, etc. Once the master connection is established, Zed will check to see if the remote server binary is present in `~/.zed_server` on the remote, and that its version matches the current version of Zed that you're using. If it is not there or the version mismatches, Zed will try to download the latest version. By default, it will download from `https://zed.dev` directly, but if you set: `{"upload_binary_over_ssh":true}` in your settings for that server, it will download the binary to your local machine and then upload it to the remote server. If you'd like to maintain the server binary yourself you can. You can either download our prebuilt versions from [GitHub](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/releases), or [build your own](https://zed.dev/docs/development) with `cargo build -p remote_server --release`. If you do this, you must upload it to `~/.zed_server/zed-remote-server-{RELEASE_CHANNEL}-{VERSION}` on the server, for example `~/.zed_server/zed-remote-server-stable-0.181.6`. The version must exactly match the version of Zed itself you are using. ## Maintaining the SSH connection Once the server is initialized. Zed will create new SSH connections (reusing the existing ControlMaster) to run the remote development server. Each connection tries to run the development server in proxy mode. This mode will start the daemon if it is not running, and reconnect to it if it is. This way when your connection drops and is restarted, you can continue to work without interruption.

This section explains how Zed initializes the remote server, checks for the remote server binary in `~/.zed_server`, and downloads it if necessary. It describes the option to upload the binary over SSH and how to manually manage the server binary by downloading or building it and placing it in the correct directory. It also details how Zed maintains the SSH connection, creating new connections to run the development server in proxy mode for uninterrupted workflow even during connection drops.