Vim 101: Editing Remote Files

Vim supports transparent remote file editing through netrw. It's available by default when nocompatible is enabled -- for more help on setting it up have a look at :help netrw-start and :help netrw-activate.

Editing a remote file is simple:

$ vim scp://server/file

Other protocols are supported, including FTP and WebDAV. I generally use this with ssh to quickly edit files on a remote server.

SSH Tips

I configure the servers I use regularly so connecting to them, whether with Vim or the ssh command, takes a minimal amount of keystrokes. This can be done by adding entries to ~/.ssh/config:

host shortname
  User alexy
  Hostname shortname.example.com
  Port 9372

Rather than typing vim scp://alexy@shortname.example.com:9372/.vimrc, I can now type vim scp://shortname/.vimrc to edit the Vim settings on one of my servers.

Vim Client/Server

If Vim is compiled with the +clientserver option, it can accept remote commands. This is generally true for GUI versions of Vim, so if your system has gvim or MacVim, try this in a terminal:

$ mvim --servername example
$ mvim --servername example --remote-send 'ihello from the terminal'

Running this on a Mac with MacVim installed caused it to open a window with a new document, then switch to Insert mode and type a short message.

Vim’s --remote-send option makes a lot of labour-saving scripting tasks possible. For an example of this, take a look at Vim and the terminal by Michael Scarpa.