ssh-hosts

ssh-hosts is a Python script that lets you search through your ssh hosts configuration (typically ~/.ssh/config) from a terminal. This can prove quite handy once your config file spans several dozen hosts.

Features

• UNIX glob-style matching on host names or any part of a host specification

Deficiencies

• Doesn't currently support config file includes

Examples

Let's say this is your ~/.ssh/config:

Host kermit
HostName kermit.example.com
User henson

Host piggy1
HostName piggy1.test.example.com
ForwardX11 yes
DynamicForward 8080
User henson

Host piggy2
HostName piggy2.test.example.com
ForwardX11 yes
LocalForward 8080 kermit.example.com:8080

Host gonzo
HostName gonzo.test.example.com

Just running ssh-hosts will print out the full hosts file, stripped of any comments. Let's say you want to pull up the details just on host kermit:

$ ssh-hosts kermit
Host kermit
HostName kermit.example.com
User henson

Let's say you want to list all of the piggy hosts:

$ ssh-hosts piggy*
Host piggy1
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy1.test.example.com
DynamicForward 8080
User henson

Host piggy2
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy2.test.example.com
LocalForward 8080 kermit.example.com:8080

Now you want to pull up all hosts for which you have port forwarding enabled. You use the -g flag to enable global matching on all words of the host spec:

$ ssh-hosts -g *Forward
Host piggy1
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy1.test.example.com
DynamicForward 8080
User henson

Host piggy2
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy2.test.example.com
LocalForward 8080 kermit.example.com:8080

Which hosts live in the test.example.com subdomain? Multi-word searches with glob patterns work too:

$ ssh-hosts -g "HostName *.test.example.com"
Host gonzo
HostName gonzo.test.example.com

Host piggy1
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy1.test.example.com
DynamicForward 8080
User henson

Host piggy2
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy2.test.example.com
LocalForward 8080 kermit.example.com:8080

And, finally, you want to know the list of machines that you log into as user henson.

$ ssh-hosts -g "User henson"
Host kermit
HostName kermit.example.com
User henson

Host piggy1
ForwardX11 yes
HostName piggy1.test.example.com
DynamicForward 8080
User henson