sshand 0.2.3

SSH/SFTP MCP server for AI agents — full shell and file access to remote Linux/Unix hosts

SSHand

An open MCP server that gives any AI agent SSH access to remote Linux/Unix machines — shell commands, file read/write, and SFTP transfers.

Works with Claude.ai, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, OpenAI Agents SDK, and any other MCP-compatible client.

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Quick start

# 1. Install
pip install sshand

# 2. First-run setup: add a host, test it, print client config
sshand setup

# 3. Manage hosts any time (add / test / remove + reprint config)
sshand manage

Both commands open the same clean interactive terminal UI — use the arrow keys to move and Enter to select. setup runs the guided first-run flow; manage is the ongoing host manager.

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Setup guide

sshand setup walks you through three steps:

1. Add a host. You'll be asked for:

• Alias — a short nickname like webserver or db-prod.
• Hostname / IP, port (default 22), and username.
• Authentication method:
  • SSH key file (recommended) — path to your private key, plus an optional passphrase.
  • Password — convenient for dev/test, avoid on internet-facing hosts.
  • SSH agent — delegates to your running ssh-agent; no credentials stored. On Windows the wizard also checks whether the OpenSSH Authentication Agent service is running and offers to start it.

The host is saved to hosts.yaml (or the path in SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE). An existing host is never overwritten without confirmation.

2. Test the connection. SSHand immediately connects and runs a no-op command, so you find out right away if something is wrong (bad key path, wrong port, unreachable host) instead of mid-conversation later. The host is saved either way — if the test fails, fix the issue and run sshand setup again.

3. Print client config. Pick a client (or All of them) and SSHand prints a ready-to-paste config snippet with the correct absolute paths already filled in:

Claude Desktop · Cursor · VS Code (GitHub Copilot Chat) · OpenAI (Agents SDK / ChatGPT Desktop) · Hermes Agent · OpenClaw (via MCPorter) · Other (HTTP)

Full per-client instructions are in Connecting to your AI client below.

Run sshand setup again any time to add another host or reprint a snippet — it won't touch your existing hosts.

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Managing your hosts

sshand manage opens the interactive host manager — a live table of your configured hosts plus a menu:

• List hosts — refresh the table.
• Add a host — the same flow as setup, with an optional connection test afterwards.
• Test a host — connect and report success or failure.
• Remove a host — delete an entry (with confirmation).
• Client config snippets — reprint the paste-ready config for any client, prefaced with the list of hosts the agent will be able to reach.

The screen refreshes in place after each action, with the result of your last action shown above the menu. Press q / choose Quit to exit.

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Installation options

Option A — pip (recommended for most users)

pip install sshand        # from PyPI
pip install -e .            # from source, editable install

Option B — uvx (zero-install, no venv needed)

uv is the modern Python package manager. With it installed you can run SSHand without any manual install step:

uvx sshand                # run server directly
uvx sshand setup          # run setup wizard

This is the cleanest option to recommend to non-technical users.

Option C — plain Python (no install)

git clone https://github.com/muradmalik23/sshand
cd sshand
pip install -r requirements.txt
python server.py            # start server
python manage.py setup      # run the setup wizard
python manage.py            # interactive host manager

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Connecting to your AI client

Claude.ai and ChatGPT (web + desktop)

For Claude.ai web and ChatGPT, SSHand runs as an HTTP server and you connect it through each app's native integrations UI.

→ See INTEGRATIONS.md for the full step-by-step guide, including how to expose the server publicly using ngrok or Cloudflare Tunnel, and how to add it to Claude.ai Integrations and ChatGPT Desktop.

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Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ssh": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["sshand"]
    }
  }
}

Or with plain Python:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ssh": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/sshand/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

No env var needed for either option — hosts are stored at ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml automatically. See Host inventory below if you want a different location.

Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

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Cursor

Create or update .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or the global Cursor MCP settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ssh": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["sshand"]
    }
  }
}

No env var needed — hosts are stored at ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml automatically.

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VS Code (GitHub Copilot Chat)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json or your workspace settings.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "ssh": {
        "type": "stdio",
        "command": "uvx",
        "args": ["sshand"]
      }
    }
  }
}

No env var needed — hosts are stored at ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml automatically.

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OpenAI Agents SDK

# Terminal 1 — keep this running
sshand --transport http --port 8000

from agents import Agent
from agents.mcp import MCPServerStreamableHttp

ssh_server = MCPServerStreamableHttp(url="http://localhost:8000/mcp")
agent = Agent(name="ops-agent", mcp_servers=[ssh_server])

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Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent (Nous Research) reads MCP server config from ~/.hermes/config.yaml under the mcp_servers key — same command/args/env shape as everywhere else:

mcp_servers:
  ssh:
    command: "uvx"
    args: ["sshand"]

If you installed SSHand from source instead of via uvx, point command at python and add ["/absolute/path/to/sshand/server.py"] as args, same as the Claude Desktop snippet above.

No env var needed either way — hosts are stored at ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml automatically.

Start (or reload) Hermes to pick it up:

hermes chat          # fresh start
/reload-mcp          # or, from inside a running session

Hermes prefixes every tool with mcp_<server_name>_, so e.g. ssh_run_command shows up as mcp_ssh_ssh_run_command — you won't normally need the prefixed name, Hermes picks the right tool from your prompt on its own.

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OpenClaw

OpenClaw doesn't take MCP servers directly — it calls them through MCPorter, a separate CLI that OpenClaw shells out to for schema discovery and tool calls. Install MCPorter first:

npm install -g mcporter

Then register SSHand with it:

mcporter config add ssh --command uvx --args sshand

That writes an entry to config/mcporter.json (or ~/.mcporter/mcporter.json for a machine-wide install) in the same mcpServers shape used everywhere else:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ssh": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["sshand"]
    }
  }
}

No env var needed — hosts are stored at ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml automatically.

Confirm MCPorter can see it and list the tools:

mcporter list ssh --schema

No further OpenClaw-side config is needed — just ask it to do something that needs SSH (e.g. "check disk usage on webserver") and OpenClaw will invoke mcporter call ssh.ssh_run_command ... on its own.

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Any other MCP client (HTTP)

sshand --transport http --port 8000

MCP endpoint: http://localhost:8000/mcp

For remote access, put a reverse proxy (nginx / Caddy) in front with TLS. Never expose port 8000 directly on a public interface.

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Host inventory

Hosts are stored in ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml, created automatically on startup regardless of how SSHand was installed (pip, uvx, or from source) — no env var or extra config required. You can edit the file directly or let your agent call ssh_add_host.

Want a different location instead? Set SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE to override it, e.g. "env": { "SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE": "/absolute/path/to/hosts.yaml" } in any of the MCP configs above.

Running from a git clone and want the inventory to live next to the source instead? Point SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE at a repo-local copy:

cp hosts.yaml.example hosts.yaml
export SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE="$PWD/hosts.yaml"

Auth types

Key file — most common, most secure:

auth:
  type: key
  key_path: ~/.ssh/id_rsa       # ~ is expanded automatically
  passphrase: null              # set if the key is encrypted

Password — convenient for dev/test, avoid on internet-facing servers:

auth:
  type: password
  password: s3cr3t

SSH agent — no credentials stored at all, delegates to the running ssh-agent:

auth:
  type: agent

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Available tools

Tool	Description	Read-only?
ssh_list_hosts	List all configured SSH targets	✅
ssh_add_host	Register a new SSH host	❌
ssh_remove_host	Remove a host from inventory	❌
ssh_test_connection	Verify auth works for a host	✅
ssh_run_command	Execute a shell command + capture output	❌
ssh_read_file	Read a remote file's contents	✅
ssh_write_file	Create or overwrite a remote file	❌
ssh_list_directory	Browse a remote directory	✅
ssh_upload_file	Push a local file to the remote host (SFTP)	❌
ssh_download_file	Pull a remote file to this machine (SFTP)	✅
ssh_get_local_info	Return OS and path style of the MCP server host	✅

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Example conversations

"What servers do you have access to?" → ssh_list_hosts

"Check disk usage on webserver" → ssh_run_command(alias='webserver', command='df -h')

"Read the nginx config on the web box" → ssh_read_file(alias='webserver', remote_path='/etc/nginx/nginx.conf')

"Tail the last 100 lines of syslog on bastion" → ssh_run_command(alias='bastion', command='tail -n 100 /var/log/syslog')

"Deploy this config file to devbox" → ssh_write_file(alias='devbox', remote_path='/etc/myapp/config.yaml', content='...')

"Download today's DB backup from webserver" → ssh_download_file(alias='webserver', remote_path='/backups/db-today.sql.gz', local_path='/tmp/db-today.sql.gz')

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CLI reference

sshand [subcommand] [options]

Subcommands:
  setup                  Interactive first-run wizard (add a host, test, print config)
  manage                 Interactive host manager (add / test / remove + config snippets)

Options:
  --transport {stdio,http}   Transport (default: stdio)
  --port INT                 HTTP port (default: 8000)
  --host STR                 HTTP bind address (default: 127.0.0.1)

Examples:
  sshand                    # start stdio server
  sshand setup              # first-run wizard
  sshand manage             # interactive host manager
  sshand --transport http   # start HTTP server on :8000

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Security notes

• By default your inventory lives outside the repo at ~/.sshand/hosts.yaml, so it can't accidentally land in version control. If you've pointed SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE at a repo-local hosts.yaml, keep it out of git — it's already excluded by the included .gitignore.
• Prefer key-based or agent auth over password auth for any internet-facing host.
• The HTTP transport binds to 127.0.0.1 by default.
• When exposing the HTTP server publicly (for Claude.ai / ChatGPT web), use TLS and consider adding authentication via a reverse proxy.
• ssh_run_command is marked destructiveHint: true — MCP clients that respect annotations will prompt before running potentially dangerous commands.

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Project structure

sshand/
├── server.py           # FastMCP server — all 11 tools + CLI entry point
├── ssh_client.py       # Async paramiko wrapper (command exec + SFTP)
├── host_config.py      # YAML host inventory manager
├── manage.py           # Interactive TUI — setup wizard + host manager (rich + questionary)
├── setup_wizard.py     # Client-config snippet builders + Windows agent helpers (used by manage.py)
├── platform_utils.py   # Windows SSH agent helpers
├── hosts.yaml.example  # Safe template — for repo-local SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE setups
├── hosts.yaml          # Optional: only present if SSH_MCP_HOSTS_FILE points here (gitignored)
├── INTEGRATIONS.md     # Guide: Claude.ai and ChatGPT native extensions
├── pyproject.toml      # Package metadata + pip/uvx install config
├── requirements.txt    # Plain pip install fallback
└── README.md