RunCloud Web Terminal provides an intuitive, browser-based terminal environment built for individual system administration and real-time team collaboration. This guide explains how to start terminal sessions, navigate the web interface, verify your identity using Two-Factor Authentication, and work together with teammates in the same terminal shell.

Launching a Terminal Session

You can launch Web Terminal from two different areas within the RunCloud dashboard, depending on the type of administrative tasks you need to perform.

Option A: Server-Level Terminal (Root Access)

A server-level terminal gives you full root privileges over the entire server.

  1. Log in to your RunCloud dashboard and navigate to your server by selecting Servers > your server name.
  2. Locate the “Terminal” dropdown menu in the upper-right corner of the page.
  3. Select Terminal > Launch Terminal.
Launch server terminal in RunCloud

This can be useful for managing operating system packages with apt or yum, restarting services with commands like systemctl restart php8.2-fpm, checking system logs in /var/log/nginx/error.log, and monitoring server performance with htop.

Option B: Web Application-Level Terminal (Isolated App Context)

An application-level terminal opens directly inside an application directory and runs under that application’s system user.

  1. Log in to your RunCloud dashboard and navigate to your application by selecting Web Applications > your web application name.
  2. Locate the “Terminal” dropdown menu in the upper-right corner of the page.
  3. Select Terminal > Launch Terminal.
Launch application terminal in RunCloud

If you select this option, you will be connected to a terminal session that automatically opens in your application’s root path (such as /home/runcloud/webapps/app-name). This is useful when you want to run application-specific commands without changing directories or switching system users manually. For example:

  • WordPress: wp plugin list, wp core update, or wp cache flush
  • Laravel: php artisan migrate, php artisan queue:restart, or php artisan config:cache

Mandatory 2FA Verification on Session Startup

To keep your servers secure, each new terminal session requires a fresh 2FA verification.

  1. When you click Launch Terminal, RunCloud will open a new modal window titled “Two-Factor Authentication”.
  2. Open your authenticator application (such as Google Authenticator, Authy, Ente Auth, or 1Password) on your mobile device or computer.
  3. Enter your 6-digit TOTP verification code into the input field.
  4. Click Verify & Start Session.
Server 2FA for web terminal

Your terminal session will connect immediately after RunCloud verifies your code. Once the terminal is connected, you can move or resize the terminal window freely. You can also click through to other dashboard areas, such as Services, Monitoring, SSL/TLS, or Database, while your terminal session stays connected in the foreground.

The terminal window supports ANSI colors, mouse scrolling, text selection, clipboard copying and pasting, and full-screen terminal editors such as nano, vim, and htop.

Accessing web terminal in RunCloud

Real-Time Collaboration in Terminal Window

RunCloud Web Terminal allows multiple team members to connect to the same pseudo-terminal (PTY) shell simultaneously.

Viewing Active Sessions

When you launch a new terminal session or click the session count indicator in the terminal header, the dashboard shows the “Active Terminal Sessions” panel:

  • Shows the session environment and the team member who created it (for example, “root@server-name opened by Kamarool Karim”).
  • Displays the number of users actively connected to that session.
  • Provides a Join button to enter the session and a Close button to terminate it.
View active sessions in RunCloud

Server Session Limit 

Each server can run up to three active terminal sessions simultaneously. If a server reaches this limit, attempting to start another session displays an error message.

When this occurs, RunCloud disables the Start New Session button until an active session is closed.

How to Join an Active Session

  1. Open the “Terminal” dropdown menu from your server or web application header.
  2. Locate the running session you want to access in the “Active Terminal Sessions” list.
  3. Click Join.
Join sessions in RunCloud web terminal

When you click the Join button, your browser connects to the live terminal session immediately without asking for a new 2FA code. After that, every keystroke, command, and terminal output appears on the screens of all connected team members in real time.

Leaving a Session vs. Terminating a Session

It is important to understand the difference between leaving a terminal window and terminating an active session.

Leaving a Session

If you want to leave a session, you can simply close your browser tab. When you leave a session, it only disconnects your personal connection; the terminal session and all running background commands continue running for all other connected team members.

Disconnecting / Closing a Session

To disconnect or close a session, click the Close button next to a session in the session list, or click the X button. RunCloud will display a confirmation modal asking whether you want to close this terminal session for everyone. When you click OK, RunCloud immediately terminates the PTY process on the server, which ends the session for all participants.

Terminating a session in web terminal

If you have any other questions or need help, please feel free to get in touch with our 24/7 support team. We’re here to help!