The only thing required is the extension for remote SSH and remote Development, which gets installed as a package when you install Remote Development - Visual Studio Marketplace.
It installs and sets up what Cursor needs to work. It looks no different than opening a local project. All of my projects are run on other servers, mainly due to hardware. My AI inference server, for instance, is a 48-core, 128GB RAM, NVMe SSD, and a Telsa P40 24GB GPU for inference tasks.
Click the very bottom left icon in Cursor (><), select Connect to Host, and then I prefer to add/edit hosts via the SSH config, which will open in Cursor to edit if selected. Add your Host (Name) and then the IP in HostName, User, and you’re good to go. Here’s an example of what’s in mine.
Host vm-dkc-ai-playground-deb
HostName 10.0.30.22
User mbowden
Host lxc-dkc-dev-server-deb
HostName 10.0.30.15
User root
Save, then select Connect to Host again, pick the server you just entered, input credentials, and then you’re in. I would recommend using RSA keys. Using RSA keys and disabling root passwords is more secure, but it’s also more efficient, and there’s no need to enter a password each time.