SSH Assistant

SSH Assistant a set of utilities related to SSH.

Pre-Requisites

• Required
  • ssh
  • dialog
• Recommended
  • sshpass
  • man
  • vim, nano, emacs, or other console text editor

Installation Instructions

pip install ssh-assistant
ssh-assistant

SSH Menu

The main reason SSH Assistant was created, this provides a full menu system around the Host entries in your SSH Config file.

SSH Menu: Features

• No need to keep a separate file for menu entries.
• SSH Assistant-specific statements look like comments to SSH.
• SSH Host entries are grouped by categories (tags).
• Utilize password files to avoid being prompted (and thus remembering) each password.

SSH Menu: SSH Config File Commands

There are 4 SSH Assistant commands you can put within the Host entries of you SSH config file. But, you only need to add 1 tag entry to incorporate a SSH Host entry in to the menu. If you do not, the SSH Host entry will be skipped.

Also note, there is a category called All which is automatically created for you, which contains all entries.

SSH Menu: Example SSH Entries in Config File

# This is the minimum required for an entry to appear in the SSH Menu.
#   Menu entry text:  devws1 (current_user)
#   Menu help text:   (localhost)
#   Menu categories:  All
#   Password:         Will be prompted if needed
Host devws1
    Hostname localhost
    # [MenuTags] All


# This is an example using an SSH key for connection.
#   Menu entry text:  ProLUG Rocky 9.5 Home Server + (root)
#   Menu help text:   My personal Rocky Linux install for ProLUG labs (vm00)
#   Menu categories:  ProLUG, VirtualBox, Rocky Linux, All
#   Password:         Will be prompted if needed
Host vm00
    Hostname vm00
    User root
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
    # [MenuTags] ProLUG, VirtualBox, Rocky Linux
    # [MenuTitle] ProLUG Rocky 9.5 Home Server
    # [MenuDesc] My personal Rocky Linux install for ProLUG labs


# This is an example where a password file will be used with sshpass.
#   Menu entry text:  Proxmox 2 (root)
#   Menu help text:   (proxmox2)
#   Menu categories:  Bare Metal, Debian, All
#   Password:         Will be retrieved from file /home/joey/.ssh/passwords/proxmox2-root.pw
Host proxmox2
    Hostname proxmox2
    User root
    # [PasswordFile] /home/joey/.ssh/passwords/proxmox2-root.pw
    # [MenuTitle] Proxmox 2
    # [MenuTags]  Bare Metal, Debian

SSH Menu: Common Menu Hotkeys

Utility Features

• Edit your SSH config file with your favorite text editor.
• Pull up the man page for the SSH config file.