OAuth callback listener starts on remote host instead of local in Remote-SSH mode, causing login hang
Resolved 💬 0 comments Opened Sep 26, 2025 by ytcheng Closed Sep 26, 2025
What version of Codex is running?
codex vs extension 0.4.14
Which model were you using?
_No response_
What platform is your computer?
Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Connect to a remote host via VS Code Remote-SSH.
- Trigger the Codex extension login process.
- The extension or CLI spawns a callback HTTP listener on port 1455, but on the remote host (127.0.0.1:1455).
- The browser on the local machine is redirected to http://localhost:1455/auth/callback?code=…
- The login flow never completes because the local side has no handler for that callback.
- On remote, curl -i http://127.0.0.1:1455/auth/callback?code=… succeeds.
What is the expected behavior?
- In Remote-SSH mode, the OAuth callback listener should be created on the local client machine, or be automatically forwarded from remote → local so that browser requests to localhost:1455 are routed correctly.
- The login flow should work transparently, without requiring manual port forwarding or special setup.
What do you see instead?
- The callback server is started on the remote host.
- The browser callback to localhost:1455 fails (no response).
- The login process hangs unless the user manually sets up port forwarding or triggers the callback on remote via curl.
Additional information
When using VS Code in Remote-SSH mode with the OpenAI Codex vs extension login flow, the OAuth callback server (on port 1455) is launched on the remote host, not on the local machine. As a result, the browser on the local machine attempting to access http://localhost:1455/auth/callback?code=… never reaches the intended handler, and the login process stalls indefinitely.
I verified this by SSHing into the remote machine and running:
curl -i "http://127.0.0.1:1455/auth/callback?code=…"on the remote host, and that successfully completes the authentication. Meanwhile, the local browser callback never succeeds because the server is not listening locally.