If you primarily work on another system, such as a laptop, and want to use your DGX Spark as a remote resource, this playbook shows you how to connect and work over SSH. With SSH, you can securely open a terminal session or tunnel ports to access web apps and APIs on your DGX Spark from your local machine.
There are two approaches: NVIDIA Sync (recommended) for streamlined device management, or manual SSH for direct command-line control.
Before you get started, there are some important concepts to understand:
Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic protocol for securely connecting to a remote computer over an untrusted network. It lets you open a terminal on your DGX Spark as if you were sitting at it, run commands, transfer files, and manage services—all encrypted end-to-end.
SSH tunneling (also called port forwarding) securely maps a port on your laptop (for example, localhost:8888) to a port on the DGX Spark where an app is listening (such as JupyterLab on port 8888). Your browser connects to localhost, and SSH forwards the traffic through the encrypted connection to the remote service without exposing that port on the wider network.
mDNS (Multicast DNS) lets devices discover each other by name on a local network without
needing a central DNS server. Your DGX Spark advertises its hostname via mDNS, so you can
connect using a name like spark-abcd.local (note the .local suffix), rather than looking
up its IP address.
You will establish secure SSH access to your DGX Spark device using either NVIDIA Sync or a manual SSH configuration. NVIDIA Sync provides a graphical interface for device management with integrated app launching, while manual SSH gives you direct command-line control with port forwarding capabilities. Both approaches enable you to run terminal commands, access web applications, and manage your DGX Spark remotely from your laptop.
~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your DGX Spark.