ssh / scp: password on command line and shellselect

Why is it wrong

There will be past the head at least once in your life can change the password as an option to the ssh client. So why OpenSSH has not provided?

Some reasons might be these

In some cases it is convenient

Then it becomes necessary to change the password as an option to ssh?

It can be useful when working remotely on a server in a thirty intranet. If we can not exchange keys with all servers that we access. It often happens that the passwords of servers inside a company are known by all employees, and are often very embarrassing as "password", "admin", "foo" or "root".

In this case, why not pass it to ssh as an option, so we can create aliases or use simple shell scripts, as shellselect that we will see, we simplify server administration.

How-

First we need to download the source code of OpenSSL, understand how it works, where it stores the password, change them to read even from the command line, correct any errors, compile everything, make sure it works. Do not be afraid, I have already done this and I've created a patch, just download the sources and apply my patch.

I tell you how:

We finished. We see that when running ssh will invoke the system. Verify 

 $ Ssh - help
 usage: ssh [-1246AaCfgKkMNnqsTtVvXxY] [-b bind_address] [-c cipher_spec]
            [-D [bind_address:] port] [-e escape_char] [-F configfile]
            [Identity_file-i] [-L [bind_address:] port: host: hostport]
            [Login_name-l] [-m mac_spec] [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option] [-p port]
            [-R [bind_address:] port: host: hostport] [-S ctl_path]
            [-W local_tun [: remote_tun]] [user @] hostname [command]

While we accept ssh options 

 $. / Ssh - help
 usage: ssh [-1246AaCfgKkMNnqsTtVvXxY] [-b bind_address] [-c cipher_spec]
            [-D [bind_address:] port] [-e escape_char] [-F configfile]
            [Identity_file-i] [-L [bind_address:] port: host: hostport]
            [Login_name-l] [-m mac_spec] [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option] [-p port]
            [-R [bind_address:] port: host: hostport] [-S ctl_path] [-W password]
            [-W local_tun [: remote_tun]] [user @] hostname [command]

As you can see there is [-W password] more than the standard version. Now we prove that everything works:
./ssh -W password username@hostname
if you followed my steps correctly you have logged on the server hostname user username cone.

Shellselect

shellselect is a Bash script that exploits the ability of our ssh to accept the password from the command line to open a remote connection.

Throwing a window will appear as shown below.

shellselect

shellselect


To connect to a server just select one from the list and press the OK button. Simple no!

The setup is even easier, just fill in a text file with the following information: ip, label, user, protocol (ssh or telnet) and possibly a password. If the password is not specified will be called the normal system that ssh may ask you credentials for access. Otherwise we will launch ssh with option-W. Like this 

 10.50.2.101 ssh root root DC-TIM
 10.60.11.251 ssh root TECTEST root_password
 capsula.no capsule root ssh-ip.org
 92.243.11.13 ssh metals danilo
 10.50.5.100 ssh root QuaggaTest Qpass
 10.50.2.102 user telnet cisco cisco

Shellselect, the script 

  # / Bin / bash

 ProcessLine () (
   line = "$ @"

   $line | awk '{ print $1 }' ) ; IP = $ (echo $ line | awk '(print $ 1)');
   $line | awk '{ print $2 }' ) ; HOST = $ (echo $ line | awk '(print $ 2)');
   $line | awk '{ print $3 }' ) ; USER = $ (echo $ line | awk '(print $ 3)');
   $line | awk '{ print $4 }' ) ; PROTOCOL = $ (echo $ line | awk '(print $ 4)');
   $line | awk '{ print $5 }' ) ; PASS = $ (echo $ line | awk '(print $ 5)');

   "x $PASS " = "x" ] ; then if ["x $ PASS" = "x"] then
       PASS = "X"
   fi

   " ZENITY_OPTIONS = "$ PASS ZENITY_OPTIONS $ $ $ $ USER $ HOST IP PROTOCOL"
 )

 # # # Main # # #
 HOME = "~"
 /bin/ssh" SSH = "$ HOME / bin / ssh"
 /prog/shellselect/hosts" FILE = "$ HOME / prog / shellselect / hosts"

 ZENITY_GENERAL_OPTIONS = "- title shellSelect - width 420"
 --list --print-column ALL --hide-column 1 --column pass --column IP --column Host --column User --column Protocol" ZENITY_OPTIONS = "$ ZENITY_GENERAL_OPTIONS - list - print-column ALL - hide-column 1 - column pass - IP column - column Host - User column - column Protocol"

 "$1" ! = "" ] ; then if ["$ 1"! = ""] then
     FILE = "$ 1"
    ! -f $FILE ] ; then if [!-f $ FILE] then 
        : does not exists" echo "$ file: does not exists"
        exit 1
    ! -r $FILE ] ; then elif [!-r $ FILE] then
        : can not read" echo "$ file: can not read"
        exit 2
    fi
 fi

 # Read $ FILE using the file descriptors
 0 exec 3 <& 0
 $FILE exec 0 <$ FILE

 COUNT_LINE = 0

 line; do while read line; do
     ProcessLine $ line
     $COUNT_LINE + 1 ) ) COUNT_LINE = $ (($ COUNT_LINE + 1))
 done
 <& 3 exec 0 <& 3

 # Make zenity command

 --height $((170 + ($COUNT_LINE - 1) * 26))" ZENITY_OPTIONS = "$ ZENITY_OPTIONS - height $ ((170 + ($ COUNT_LINE - 1) * 26))"
 zenity $ZENITY_OPTIONS | tr '|' ' ' ` ITEM $ = `zenity ZENITY_OPTIONS | tr '|' ''`

 $ITEM | awk '{ print $1 }' ) PASSWORD = $ (echo $ ITEM | awk '(print $ 1)')
 $ITEM | awk '{ print $2 }' ) IP = $ (echo $ ITEM | awk '(print $ 2)')
 $ITEM | awk '{ print $3 }' ) HOST = $ (echo $ ITEM | awk '(print $ 3)')
 $ITEM | awk '{ print $4 }' ) USER = $ (echo $ ITEM | awk '(print $ 4)')
 $ITEM | awk '{ print $5 }' ) PROTOCOL = $ (echo $ ITEM | awk '(print $ 5)')

 in homes in the $ PROTOCOL
     ssh2 ) ssh | ssh2)
         " $PASSWORD " = "X" ] ; then if ["$ PASSWORD" = "X"] then
             $IP $ Ssh $ USER @ $ IP
         else
             $IP -W $PASSWORD $ Ssh $ USER @ $ IP-W $ PASSWORD
         fi
         ;;
     telnet)
         $ telnet IP 23
         ;;
     *)
         echo "unknown protocol"
         ;;
 esac
 exit 0

The only parameters are set HOME, SSH and FILE. The home is your home directory, SSH is the path to the executable as SSH (the one with the patch) that accepts the option-W and FILE is inserted the name of the configuration file.

4 Responses to "ssh / scp: password on command line and shellselect"

  1. Nicholas Greek - February 5th, 2009

    Great compliment
    especially the patch to OpenSSH,

    Nicola

  2. Gianluca - August 3rd, 2009

    Hello I'm sorry but I installed openssh and your patches among the new options-W ssh me for the password but it does not matter if you use the calls anyway, so I installation details are incorrect or what you described above does not work.

  3. Feather - August 21st, 2009

    The patch works with servers that use the ssh protocol version 2, why do not you work here could errese that the server attempts to connect only accepts version 1. Try running with-v option and verification
    appears that the line

    debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0

    Another reason why you may ask the password could be that the server accepts authentication "password", rather than using the "keyboard-interactive". You can see by reading the line

    debug1: Authentications That can continue: publickey, password, keyboard-interactive

    I wrote another patch to ensure that functions in these two cases applies to the version of ssh openssh-5.2p1. Then you should download the new source ssh and apply this patch:

    http://www.piumalab.org/wp-content/uploads/openssh-5.2p1-shellselect.patch

    Good compilation.

  4. Maryuano - April 27th, 2010

    Great for creating bash script to automate the work on different machines.

    Great PiumaLab

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