# RSE Connector Services

Connector Services provide the mechanism for maintaining a connection to a particular remote system, requesting whatever credentials are required for authentication, and for controlling the persistence of those credentials. A connector service is typically created or referenced by a subsystem configuration when a new subsystem instance is being created.

Every subsystem has a connector service. Some subsystems will share a connector service among themselves. Subsystems that share a connector service all connect and disconnect at the same time. For example, a file subsystem and a shell subsystem that are both using the SSH protocol will share the same connector service instance so that their connections are established and removed at the same time.

Connector services use credentials providers (see `ICredentialsProvider`) to establish any credentials needed for authentication to a remote system.