SSH Config File - Make SSH Easier

How do you stay organized with SSH connections? Most of us simply search our terminals history to find SSH connections. You may do history | grep "ssh" or even Ctrl+R and search SSH. While that may work for a few connections, there is a better way: SSH Config file. An SSH Config file simply tells OpenSSH how to open up connections. The benefit is that you can keep all your connections all in one place. Plus you can use things like Jumphosts and Public Keys to make connections easier. Let’s look at a typical SSH command.

ssh erobles@10.0.3.11 -p 2300 -i ~/.ssh/mykeys

erobles@10.0.3.11 this states our username on the server and the IP/Hostname of the server

-p 2300 the port we are connecting to on the server

-i ~/.ssh/mykeys the Public/Private keys used in the SSH connection

While this is fine, it can be time consuming and easily forgotten. So let’s see how this commands translates to an SSH Config file.

HOST myserver
  HostName 10.0.3.11
  User erobles
  Port 2300
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/mykeys

The example above achieves the same as the long SSH command in the previous example. You can save this file in ~/.ssh./ directory with the filename ssh_config. Once the file is saved you can type ssh myserver, OpenSSH will check the SSH config file for an entry myserver and execute an SSH connections with the options you specify. As you have more servers/machines you have to SSH into you simply add those the SSH config file. You can have 20, 40, or 100 connections all in one file! Working with an SSH Config file makes your SSH workflow much easier. It can also be helpful to keep track of SSH connectitons.

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