SSH Quick Login and Get Result Approach: No More Long Syntax!

Many of you know how to do password-less login with SSH.

Below is my approach.

person@NOVELLDESK:~> ssh-keygen -t dsa
Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/person/.ssh/id_dsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/person/.ssh/id_dsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/person/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
1e:05:de:d8:6a:10:3e:39:c2:ee:85:58:ec:56:1d:e9 person@NOVELLDESK
person@NOVELLDESK:~> ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub root@CREATIVEDESK
Password:
Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'root@CREATIVEDESK'", and check in:

  .ssh/authorized_keys

to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting.

person@NOVELLDESK:~> ssh root@CREATIVEDESK
Last login: Fri Apr 11 12:52:31 2008 from 164.XXX.XXX.88
CREATIVEDESK:~ #

Now the magic will start from here.

For example, one often needs to log in to servers CREATIVEDESK, RED, GREEN, BLUE.

Step – 1:

Create a simple shell script in BASH, and save it as ‘ssh-to-server’ in ‘/usr/local/bin’. ‘sudo’ is your friend.

#! /bin/bash

#Note: I am assuming that you have to login as root to
#every server" >

ssh root@`basename $0` $*

Step – 2:

Create Symbolic link of ‘ssh-to-server’ with the name of the server (Whose IP can be resolved)

person@NOVELLDESK:~>sudo cd /usr/local/bin
person@NOVELLDESK:~>sudo ln -s ssh-to-server CREATIVEDESK
person@NOVELLDESK:~>sudo ln -s ssh-to-server RED
person@NOVELLDESK:~>sudo ln -s ssh-to-server GREEN
person@NOVELLDESK:~>sudo ln -s ssh-to-server BLUE

Step – 3:

Now time to execute the magic…

Magic – 1

person@NOVELLDESK:~> CREATIVEDESK uptime
  2:15pm  up 31 days  0:35,  5 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

person@NOVELLDESK:~> RED uptime
 2:15pm  up 101 days  0:35,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

person@NOVELLDESK:~> GREEN uptime
 2:15pm  up 252 days  0:35,  1 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Magic – 2

person@NOVELLDESK:~> CREATIVEDESK ls -l /usr/bin
total 82950
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root       8929 Jun 19  2006 3Ddiag
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root       1314 Jun 19  2006 3Ddiag-result
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root       1828 Jun 19  2006 3Ddiag.devel
...

Magic – 3
Transferring Single file:

person@NOVELLDESK:~>cat foo | CREATIVEDESK cat > foo

Transferring Multiple files with archive in desire remote location.

person@NOVELLDESK:~>tar -c -f - bar | CREATIVEDESK "cd /tmp; tar -x -f -"

Conclusion:

Now, one can simply ssh to server by giving only server name (whose IP can be resolved), and get it’s result. This will eliminate “AnyUserName@IP/ServerName” syntax login to server and then execute the command and Blah…Blah…

Don’t comment me on that SSH Alias tips and Tricks,
Believe in Art Of Administration!

That’s it for now…