autossh

Alias-based SSH/SCP toolkit with encrypted password storage.

Wraps ssh/scp via pexpect so you can connect to any host by name without typing passwords. All passwords are stored AES-256-GCM encrypted in a local hosts file.

Install

pip install autossh

Python 3.8+ required. Runtime dependencies: pexpect, pyyaml, cryptography.

Quick start

# 1. Open the host file editor (creates the file on first run)
aedit

# 2. Add a host line, save and quit vim:
#    192.168.0.1   root   mypassword

# 3. On save, aedit prompts for a master password and encrypts all passwords.
#    The master password can be saved to ~/.config/autossh/.env for future use.

# 4. Connect
assh 192.168.0.1

Commands

Run any command with -h for usage details.

Host file format

Each non-comment line:

host[:port][[alias]]    user    password

Examples:

192.168.0.1             root    password1
192.168.0.2:36000       root    password2    ## custom port
192.168.0.3[dev3]       root    password3    ## with alias
192.168.0.4:22[dev4]    root    password4    ## port + alias
192.168.0.5             None    None         ## anonymous

• host — IP or hostname
• port — optional, defaults to 22
• alias — optional short name for assh <alias>
• user / password — use None for anonymous SSH

Password encryption

Passwords are encrypted with AES-256-GCM using a master password you choose. The master password is derived into a file key via scrypt and stored in ~/.config/autossh/.env (chmod 0600) so you only type it once per machine.

aedit decrypts passwords in memory (temp file in /dev/shm) so the editor always shows plaintext; the hosts file on disk always stores ciphertext.

Configuration

Optional config at ~/.config/autossh/config.yaml:

timeout: 30       # pexpect timeout in seconds (default: 30)
host_file: ~/.config/autossh/hosts   # override host file path