Zed SSH Agents: Client Vs. Server File Access Issue

by Alex Johnson 52 views

It's quite common these days to use SSH to connect to a remote server and get work done. This allows you to leverage powerful remote machines while keeping your local setup clean and efficient. However, a recent issue has popped up where the Zed agent, when used with a Windows client connecting to a Linux server via SSH, seems to get confused about file locations. Instead of looking at the files on the remote server, it's attempting to read them from the local Windows client. This can be a real head-scratcher and disrupt your workflow. Let's dive into what's happening and how we can potentially sort it out.

The Problem: A Case of Mistaken Identity for Zed Agents

So, you've set up your SSH connection, feeling pretty slick. You've got your Windows machine acting as the client, and your Linux box is the server, ready to crunch some code. You then invoke a Zed agent, perhaps something like @some-folder review the files in this project, expecting it to analyze your code on the server. But, surprise! The agent gets bewildered and starts trying to access files that exist only on your Windows machine, not on the Linux server you're connected to. This is clearly not the intended behavior. The expectation is that any agent operations, especially those involving file access like reviewing a project, should be performed on the remote host where the project actually resides.

This behavior has been observed with Zed version 0.215.3 on a setup involving Windows 10 as the client and Rocky Linux 10 as the server. The system specifications include 16GB/32GB of RAM and x86-64 architecture on both ends, which are fairly standard configurations and unlikely to be the root cause of this specific issue. The core problem lies in how the Zed agent is resolving file paths and understanding the execution context when operating over an SSH connection.

Digging Deeper: Why is the Agent Confused?

The most probable reason for this misbehavior is a path resolution issue. When you initiate an agent task like @some-folder review the files in this project, the agent needs to understand where this project is. In a remote SSH scenario, this project should unambiguously refer to the project directory on the remote Linux server. However, it appears that in this specific Windows-client-to-Linux-server SSH configuration, the agent might be mistakenly interpreting the file paths relative to the client's local filesystem. This could be due to how the Zed application on the Windows client is configured, how it communicates path information over the SSH tunnel, or how the agent process on the server interprets these incoming paths.

Several factors could contribute to this:

  • Local Path Precedence: It's possible that the Zed client, when sending commands or file information to the agent running on the server, is not properly aliasing or translating local Windows paths (e.g., C:\Users\YourName\Project) into their corresponding remote Linux paths (e.g., /home/youruser/project). The agent then receives what it thinks are local paths and tries to access them, failing because they don't exist on the server.
  • SSH Configuration Nuances: While SSH is generally robust, subtle differences in how Windows SSH clients handle relative paths or how the server interprets them could lead to this confusion. It might be that the working directory context isn't being consistently propagated or understood by the agent.
  • Agent's Scope: The agent's design might inherently assume a certain context for file operations. If it's not explicitly designed to differentiate between client-side and server-side paths in a remote SSH session, it could default to attempting local access based on the paths it receives.
  • Configuration Mismatch: Although the provided settings.json is empty, indicating default settings, there might be underlying configurations within Zed or the SSH client/server that are not obvious and contribute to this path resolution problem. Sometimes, even default configurations can have edge cases.

The log file provides a glimpse into the operations, showing numerous Language Server Protocol (LSP) communications and agent activities. While many entries are standard INFO or WARN messages, the ERROR [crates/zeta/src/zeta.rs:1169] error sending request for url (http://192.168.1.147:10001/predict_edits) and related connection errors are particularly interesting. This suggests that the agent is attempting to communicate with some service (likely for predictions or analysis), but this communication is failing. The fact that it's trying to connect to a local IP address (192.168.1.147) for a prediction service when operating in a remote context could be a symptom of the same path resolution or context issue.

It's crucial to understand that agents typically operate within the environment they are invoked in. When an agent is asked to