ssheval

A cross-platform pure Python script for executing remote commands over SSH and streaming raw stdout/stderr.

🚀 Features

• Works on NT & POSIX: Requires only Python 2+ and paramiko - no OpenSSH or PuTTY needed.
• Flexible authentication: Supports password, Ed25519 key, or RSA key via command-line arguments.
• Faithfully streams stdout & stderr: Outputs both streams in real time, preserving all bytes (works for text and binary data!).
• Remote exit codes: Exits with the same code as the remote command.
• SSH-like stdin behavior:
  • Pipes stdin from your console or parent process only if input is provided (matches ssh behavior).
  • If nothing is piped, remote stdin is closed immediately.

⚡️ Why use this instead of plain ssh?

• No SSH client required on Windows: Works even where ssh is missing (ex: vanilla Windows).
• Great for automation: Integrates seamlessly with scripts and tools that need to provide credentials non-interactively.
• Binary-safe: Most SSH client wrappers mishandle binary data or don't stream both stdout and stderr in real time.
• Stdin-pipes like ssh: Remote command's stdin is hooked up only when data is piped in - just like the real ssh.

🛠️ Installation

pip install ssheval

After installation, run it as ssheval.

paramiko required.

💻 Usage

Basic example:

ssheval \
  --host example.com \
  --username youruser \
  --password 'yourpassword' \
  --command 'ls -lh /tmp'

With an Ed25519 or RSA key:

ssheval \
  --host example.com \
  --username youruser \
  --ed25519-key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 \
  --command 'ls -lh /tmp'

ssheval \
  --host example.com \
  --username youruser \
  --rsa-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa \
  --command 'ls -lh /tmp'

Pipe something into the remote process:

echo "Hello remote world!" | ssheval --host foo --username bar --password baz --command 'cat -'

Download a remote file (binary-safe):

ssheval --host foo --username bar --password baz --command 'cat /usr/bin/ls' > local_ls_copy

Arguments

🔄 Stdin Handling

This script matches SSH's behavior:

• If you pipe input in, local stdin is streamed to the remote command.
• If not, remote stdin is immediately closed - remote commands like cat will finish (not hang).

Examples:

ssheval ... --command 'cat -'         # stdin closed immediately
echo foo | ssheval ... --command 'cat -'   # 'foo' is sent

⚠️ Limitations

• No PTY/interactive shell allocation.
• Basic error handling and no advanced SSH features (X11, port forwarding).

🛠️ Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit pull requests or open issues on the GitHub repository.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.