BURSUlink is a small agent for Windows, macOS and Linux. Install it on a computer that has no public address — behind a home router, a mobile connection or a corporate firewall — link it to your BURSUcloud database, and BURSU Connection Manager opens SSH, RDP, VNC, WinRM and SFTP sessions to it as if it were next door. Nothing to open on the router, nothing to configure on the firewall.
The agent runs as a system service and keeps one outbound connection to the nearest BURSUlink relay — the same kind of connection a browser makes, so every router and firewall lets it through. When you open a connection in BURSU Connection Manager, the app asks bursucm.com for a pass: a signed ticket that names the agent, your device and the one connection you are opening, valid for two minutes. The agent checks the signature and the pass, then opens the TCP connection on its side.
The two ends then try to reach each other directly, through the NAT, the way video calls do. When that works, the relay drops out of the path and the session runs end to end at the speed of your line; when a NAT refuses, the relay forwards the encrypted packets — it never holds a key and cannot read them.
An agent reaches its own computer, or acts as a gateway into the network around it. You pick the mode on the portal, and you can change it later.
The agent answers for the machine it runs on and nothing else: connections land on 127.0.0.1 of that computer. Right for a home PC, a developer's workstation, a Mac in the office or a single server — the common case, and the safe default.
One agent on one machine opens the whole office or server room: switches, hypervisors, NAS boxes, printers, machines that cannot run an agent themselves. What it may reach is an allow-list you write on the portal — network, ports and protocol — and nothing outside it.
A jump host without the jump host: the convenience of a VPN with none of its setup, for every protocol the app speaks.
Nothing listens on the internet. No port forwarding on the router, no public IP, no firewall rule, no dynamic DNS — the agent only ever connects out, over 443/tcp and 7842/udp.
No tunnel to bring up before you work, no split routing, no address plan to keep from colliding with the office you are visiting. Open the connection and it is there.
The two ends punch through their NATs and talk directly whenever the routers permit it; the relay is the fallback, not the path. Ten relays — Europe, Georgia, the United States, Russia, Brazil, China, Japan, India, the United Kingdom and Egypt — and the agent picks the nearest.
A Windows service, a systemd unit, a macOS LaunchDaemon: the agent starts with the system and needs no user session, no window, no status icon. A server that rebooted at night is reachable in the morning.
The portal signs a pass only for a member who can open that connection, and only for an agent of the same database. Accounts with two-factor sign-in must have signed in with the code. Per-folder rights and user groups work exactly as they do for direct connections.
SSH, SFTP, Telnet, RDP, VNC, WinRM and AppleRD go through the agent. A connection is marked 'through agent X' once, in the catalog, and every member of the database sees it that way.
Link the same computer to up to eight databases — a contractor's laptop shared between clients, a server two teams administer. Each link has its own key and its own rights; removing one touches nothing else.
One administrator consent when the agent is installed. Linking, re-linking, start and stop are done from the agent window with no password prompt — the running service does the work.
BURSUlink is part of BURSUcloud at no charge: as many agents, connections and relays as you need, for every database you own.
One file per platform. Install it on the computer you want to reach, not on the one you connect from.
One installer for x86, x64 and ARM64: it installs the service and the status icon, and asks for administrator consent once. Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server. Authenticode-signed.
One image for Intel and Apple Silicon. Open it, drag BURSUlink to Applications, start it and press Install in the Service tab — the system asks for an administrator password once. Developer ID signed and notarised by Apple.
The bursulink package is the service and its command line — all a server needs. On a desktop add bursulink-desktop from the same repository for the window and the status icon. Link a server from the terminal: sudo bursulink-agent enroll --code …
Create a free BURSUcloud account, link the computer, connect from anywhere.