VS Code Remote Editing

The easiest way to use Visual Studio Code on department machines is to directly run it on your desktop, or inside RAP on the compute systems. If you prefer to run it on your personal machine and use VS Code Remote Development with SSH, please take note of the following information.

VS Code can use significant amounts of CPU and RAM on the machine your are connecting to. If you connect to gate.maths.ox.ac.uk, your usage will be throttled and may become unusable. Instead, you should configure VS Code to connect to your office desktop or one of the compute servers using gate as the jump host.

To add a new remote host in VS Code:

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+O ("Show Remote Menu")
  • Select "Connect to Host" (or "SSH" if it the Remote SSH extension is not yet installed - it will be installed automatically)
  • Select "Configure SSH Hosts"
  • Select your SSH config file - typically /home/USERNAME/.ssh/config on Linux or C:\Users\USERNAME\.ssh\config on Windows
  • Add the following, replacing EXAMPLEHOST and YOURUSERNAME as appropriate:

    Host EXAMPLEHOST.maths.ox.ac.uk
        User YOURUSERNAME
        ProxyJump YOURUSERNAME@gate.maths.ox.ac.uk
  • Save the file

To connect to the host:

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+O ("Show Remote Menu")
  • Select "Connect to Host"
  • Select the host
  • If prompted, select "Linux" as the host operating system
  • If prompted, confirm the host fingerprint and select "Continue"
Last updated on 14 Jul 2026, 11:01am. Please contact us with feedback and comments about this page.