sshWrapper

An SSh wrapper to retrieve sshpass credentials and use it to log-in in the remote host.

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Usage

This wrapper works with ssh and scp!

If ssh is called, sshWrapper will search in ~/.ssh/sshpass file the credentials to the host and use to connect to host. The command will be transformed from:

ssh [args] my.ssh.server [more args]

To:

sshpass -pPassword ssh [args] my.ssh.server [more args] -o PreferredAuthentications=password
# or, if a file containing the password is informed:
sshpass -fPath/to/PasswordFile ssh [args] my.ssh.server [more args] -o PreferredAuthentications=password

If no sshpass entry is found, the vanilla version of ssh (usually /usr/bin/ssh) will be used instead, without any changes.

The same logic applies to scp.

The ~/.ssh/sshpass file can be configured using any placeholder accepted by ~/.ssh/config file, i.e ? and *. The examples below are valid entries in ~/.ssh/sshpass, and the LocalCommand session must be similar to:

Host my.ssh.server
    LocalCommand    sshpass -p thisIsThePassword

Host *.localdomain
    LocalCommand    sshpass -f path/to/fileContainingThePassword

Don't add any other option than LocalCommand in ~/.ssh/sshpass because it will be ignored during the connection. Other options can be added to regular ~/.ssh/config file, as usual.

Limitations

Because the way ssh deals with config options, only one password per host is allowed for now, which means that every user will share the same password during connection. If you want to use a user with a different password than the registred in ~/.ssh/sshpass to connect to server, you need to escape sshWrapper alias with command ssh, otherwise, a wrong password will be used without any prompt.

Installation

Bash and Zsh

1. Get it:

Download the file named sshWrapper.sh.

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lfromanini/sshWrapper/master/sshWrapper.sh

2. Include it:

Then source the file in your ~/.bashrc and/or ~/.zshrc:

$EDITOR ~/.bashrc
# and/or
$EDITOR ~/.zshrc

( ... )
+ source path/to/sshWrapper.sh
( ... )

Finally, reload your configurations.

source ~/.bashrc
# or
source ~/.zshrc

3. Done!

Requirements

• sshpass
• Because of the potential for abuse, the ~/.ssh/sshpass file must have strict permissions: read/write for the user, and not accessible by others.

Security Warning

This method requires you to store the passwords insecurely in a plain unencrypted text file. Most user should use SSh's more secure public key authentication instead.