Detailed Usage and Configuration

The Embedded Device Logger is a Visual Studio Code extension that can connect to your devices over SSH, tail their logs, and help you analyze the data with loglevel colorization, quick filters, custom keywords highlights and filtered export. It provides also an SFTP client, SSH terminals and one-off SSH commands to help you develop, debug and maintain your Linux-based devices.

• Offline logs view:

• SFTP Panel view:

If you like the extension, please rate it. We welcome issue reports and feature requests.

Full feature set

• Activity Bar view listing configured devices.

• Real-time log streaming over SSH using a configurable command (default: tail -F /var/log/syslog).

• Log level parsing, filtering, and colorization inside a Webview panel per device.

• Saved filter presets stored per device.

• Highlight up to 10 custom keywords with color-coded, bold, underlined text in both live and imported logs, configured per log panel.

• Find text inside live or imported logs with Ctrl/Cmd+F, including next/previous navigation.

• Reconnect closed SSH sessions directly from the log panel and automatically mark the log when a device closes a session.

• Export currently visible (filtered) logs to a file.

• Auto-save to file option for live SSH logs.

• Open any log files and filter them with the same interface.

• Add, edit, and remove Bookmarks in live logs and imported logs.

• Run optional on-demand SSH commands configured per device from the Devices view.

• Optionally launch an SSH terminal directly from a device card when enabled in settings.

• Optionally open a dual-pane SFTP explorer to browse remote and local files side-by-side and transfer files.

• Optionally open the configured device URL in your default web browser from the device card when enabled.

• Authenticate with SSH passwords or private keys.

• SSH passwords and private key passphrases are stored securely with VS Code Secret Storage.

• Privacy focused. No telemetry. Everything runs locally.

• Built with security in mind.

Getting started

• Install the extension as explained under Installation.

• Open it by clicking on the terminal icon of the side bar.

• Configure your devices by clicking on the pencil icon. Add them under the embeddedLogger.devices setting as explained in Configuration, then open the Embedded Logger view from the activity bar.

Installation

From VS Code:

• Click on Extensions in the side bar and search for Embedded Device Logger (Publisher: Scallant, Author: A. Scillato).

• Or from the VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the command: ext install Scallant.embedded-device-logger, and press Enter.

• Or from the console: code --install-extension Scallant.embedded-device-logger.

For more information visit the Embedded Device Logger extension in the VS Code Marketplace.

Configuration

Add devices in your VS Code settings under embeddedLogger.devices:

"embeddedLogger.maxLinesPerTab": 100000,
"embeddedLogger.devices": [
  {
    "id": "deviceA",
    "name": "Device A",
    "host": "192.168.1.10",
    "hostFingerprint": "SHA256:your-device-fingerprint",
    "secondaryHost": "192.168.1.11",
    "secondaryHostFingerprint": "SHA256:backup-device-fingerprint",
    "bastion": {
      "host": "bastion.example.com",
      "hostFingerprint": "SHA256:bastion-fingerprint",
      "port": 22,
      "username": "jump-user"
    },
    "port": 22,
    "privateKeyPath": "${env:HOME}/.ssh/id_ed25519",
    "username": "root",
    "logCommand": "tail -F /var/log/syslog",
    "enableSshTerminal": true,
    "enableSftpExplorer": true,
    "enableWebBrowser": false,
    "webBrowserUrl": "http://192.168.1.10",
    "sshCommands": [
      {
        "name": "Restart IOT",
        "command": "systemctl restart fw-iot"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Names for commands support emojis that can be copied from: https://emojidb.org.

If no password is stored yet, the extension prompts for it when connecting and saves it locally and securely. When using an encrypted private key, the passphrase is requested once and stored securely in VS Code Secret Storage. Private key paths may include ~ or ${env:VAR} tokens for convenience.

Pin each device’s host key by setting hostFingerprint to the device’s SSH host key fingerprint (for example, ssh-keygen -lf /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub -E sha256). If no fingerprint is configured, the extension records the server’s fingerprint on the first successful connection. When a server presents a different fingerprint later, you’ll be prompted to accept the new value before reconnecting.

Optionally configure a secondary host via secondaryHost (and secondaryHostFingerprint when pinning). Connections start with the primary host and automatically fall back to the secondary host when the primary connection fails; if the secondary host also fails, the extension retries the primary host.

[EXPERIMENTAL] Tunnel through a bastion/jump host by supplying a bastion block with its host, username, optional port, and optional hostFingerprint plus password or private key authentication. Secrets and host key fingerprints for the bastion are stored independently in Secret Storage and captured on first connect when omitted.

Set enableSshTerminal to control visibility of the Open SSH Terminal button alongside any configured SSH commands for that device (the action is enabled by default; set it to false to hide it). The Open SSH Terminal action opens a dedicated VS Code terminal tab for the device and authenticates using the stored password or private key (prompting for and saving the credential securely when missing).

Set enableSftpExplorer to control visibility of the Open SFTP Explorer button on the device card (enabled by default; set it to false to hide it). The explorer opens a dual-pane view with the remote home on the left and the local home on the right, including navigation, rename/delete/duplicate actions, and arrows to transfer selected files between panes (or between two remote panes when the right-side mode is switched to remote). If the SSH link drops, the explorer stays open, greys out, shows a reconnection countdown beside the title, and automatically retries every five seconds without losing the active remote paths.

Set enableWebBrowser to surface the Open WEB Browser button beneath each device. The button is disabled by default; when enabled, clicking it opens the configured webBrowserUrl if provided, otherwise the extension opens http://<host> derived from the device host (including any port in the custom URL when supplied). Both http:// and https:// URLs are supported.

Control memory usage by capping retained lines per log tab with embeddedLogger.maxLinesPerTab (default: 100000). For auto-save, this limit is not applied to a file. Everything is saved.

All options are available through the VS Code Settings UI under Embedded Device Logger, including defaults for omitted device values:

• embeddedLogger.defaultPort – applied when a device does not specify a port.

• embeddedLogger.defaultLogCommand – used when logCommand is omitted.

• embeddedLogger.defaultEnableSshTerminal – toggles whether the SSH terminal action is shown by default (default: true).

• embeddedLogger.defaultEnableSftpExplorer – toggles whether the SFTP explorer action is shown by default (default: true).

• embeddedLogger.defaultEnableWebBrowser – toggles whether the web browser action is shown by default (default: false).

• enableWebBrowser – when set to true per device, the Open WEB Browser button opens webBrowserUrl if configured or http://<host> otherwise.

• embeddedLogger.defaultSshCommands – shared SSH actions applied to devices that do not define their own list.

Notes

• Colorization of lines is performed based on the log level (DEBUG, INFO, ERROR, etc). If these keys are not present in the log, no colorization is applied.

• Filtering presets are stored per-device in the workspace state using the key embeddedLogger.presets.<deviceId>.

• Exports only include log lines currently visible after applying filters.

• When an SSH session closes, the log view appends --- SSH session closed on <timestamp> and offers a Reconnect button next to the status text to restart streaming.

• Use the Highlight button in each log panel to manage up to ten highlight rows, each with its own colour and editable keyword that updates that panel instantly.

• Use the Open Local Log File button in the Embedded Logger devices view (or run the command with the same name) to select a .log or .txt file from your machine. The chosen file is loaded into the log viewer so you can reuse filtering, presets, export filtered logs, and highlights just like a live connection.

• Status text also shows messages from the log command used in the configuration like tail -F /var/log/syslog. Messages such as tail: '/var/log/syslog' has appeared; following new file may appear when the log file is rotated or recreated. The -F flag tells tail to keep watching for the file to reappear, so the message is informational and indicates that log streaming will continue with the new file. If you prefer a different log source, update the logCommand in your device configuration.

• The Embedded Device Logger extension supports sharing the VS Code Activity Bar with other extensions. To merge an extension into the Activity Bar, select its icon from the Side Bar, then drag and drop it into your desired position within the Activity Bar.

• This extension also supports connecting to devices through a VPN (already running on the machine with VS Code).