Remote-SSH taking very long to extract

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1

Hi, when I try to connect my local Cursor to an instance via the Anysphere’s Remote-SSH extension, sometimes it will need to make a fresh build of Cursor itself. And this procedure is usually very time-consuming, about 5-7 minutes.

here’s an example output from Remote-SSH:

2026-03-02 12:14:35.824 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting server contents from cursor-server-3697a888-9905-445a-a75f-a9ce2a398b80.tar.gz

2026-03-02 12:14:35.825 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:14:45.829 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:14:55.832 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:15:05.843 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:15:15.836 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:15:25.838 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:15:35.842 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:15:45.842 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:15:55.842 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:16:05.851 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:16:15.856 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:16:25.854 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:16:35.848 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:16:45.852 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:16:55.851 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:17:05.852 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:17:15.854 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:17:25.854 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:17:35.858 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:17:45.874 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:17:55.860 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:18:05.861 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:18:15.860 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:18:25.862 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:18:35.865 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:18:45.866 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:18:55.866 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:19:05.868 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:19:15.869 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:19:25.870 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:19:35.871 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:19:45.873 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:19:56.353 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:20:05.874 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:20:15.878 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:20:25.877 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Extracting...

2026-03-02 12:20:33.398 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Checking node executable

2026-03-02 12:20:33.567 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: v20.18.2

2026-03-02 12:20:33.597 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Cleaning up stale build 618c607a249dd7fd2ffc662c6531143833bebd40 in /workspace/.cursor-server/bin/linux-x64

2026-03-02 12:21:59.817 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Cleaning up old-style stale build multiplex-server

2026-03-02 12:21:59.845 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Checking for running multiplex server: /workspace/.cursor-server/bin/multiplex-server/3ce73d09cffc8f33c6d911e972bd0f6dabbe3e26e810844be8060e6b10987db8.js

2026-03-02 12:21:59.848 [info] (ssh_tunnel) stdout: Running multiplex server:

is this 5-7 mins extracting normal? is there any suggested way to speed this up?

4

Hey, this looks like a slow filesystem issue. From the logs, cursor-server is being installed into /workspace/.cursor-server/ instead of the default ~/.cursor-server. If /workspace/ is mounted on a network filesystem (NFS, shared storage, etc.), that would explain the 5 to 7 minute extraction times.

A couple of things to try:

  1. Move the install to a local disk. Add this to your Cursor Settings (JSON):
"remote.SSH.serverInstallPath": {
  "<your-remote-host>": "/home/<your-user>"
}

This tells Remote-SSH to install cursor-server on local storage instead of /workspace/, which should cut the extraction time a lot.

  1. Clean up stale builds. The logs also show about 1.5 minutes spent on “Cleaning up stale build”. Run this on the remote host before connecting:
rm -rf /workspace/.cursor-server/bin/linux-x64/618c607a*
  1. Increase the timeout so it doesn’t fail if extraction still takes a while:
"remote.SSH.connectTimeout": 600

Can you confirm if /workspace/ is on a network filesystem? That would help narrow this down.

5

Yes, this is on a NFS (AWS EFS mounted onto a k8s pod).