SSH Commander is a powerful, colorful command-line tool for executing commands across multiple SSH servers simultaneously. It supports both password and key-based authentication, custom ports, and can execute both single commands and command files.

• 🔑 Supports both password and key-based authentication
• 🌈 Colorized output for better readability
• 📁 Execute commands from files
• 🔄 Interactive server management
• 🔒 Secure password handling (never shown in terminal)
• 🚀 Single binary deployment
• ⚙️ YAML-based configuration
• 📊 Real-time output streaming
• ⌨️ Graceful interrupt handling (Ctrl+C support)

Ubuntu/Debian:

• Modern systems: libffi8 and libssl3
• Older systems: libffi7 and libssl1.1

CentOS/RHEL:

• Modern systems: libffi-8 and openssl-3
• Older systems: libffi-7 and openssl-1.1

• Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable

• No additional requirements

1. Download the latest .deb package from the releases page
2. Install using dpkg:

sudo dpkg -i ssh-commander_*.deb

If you encounter any dependency errors during installation, run:

sudo apt -f install

This will automatically install any missing dependencies and complete the installation.

1. Download the latest release for your platform from the releases page
2. Extract the archive
3. Run the installation script:

./install.sh  # For macOS/Linux
.\install.ps1  # For Windows (Run as Administrator)

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/AthenaNetworks/ssh_commander.git
cd ssh_commander

2. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Build the executable:

./build_all.sh

SSH Commander stores server configurations in ~/.config/ssh-commander/servers.yaml. This file is automatically created when you add your first server.

The configuration file uses YAML format and supports both key-based and password authentication:

# Key-based authentication (recommended)
- hostname: web1.example.com
  username: admin
  key_file: ~/.ssh/id_rsa  # Path to your SSH key
  port: 22  # Optional, defaults to 22
  tags: [prod, web]  # Optional, defaults to ['default']

# Password authentication
- hostname: db1.example.com
  username: dbadmin
  password: your_secure_password  # Not recommended for production use
  port: 2222
  tags: [prod, db]  # Optional server tags

⚠️ Important Security Warning:

• Passwords are stored in plaintext and are NOT secure
• Anyone with access to your config file can see the passwords
• This includes backup systems, cloud sync, etc.

✅ Recommended Approach:

• Use key-based authentication instead
  • Generate an SSH key: ssh-keygen -t ed25519
  • Copy to server: ssh-copy-id user@hostname
  • Use key_file: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 in config

• Config file is searched for in the following order:
  1. Path specified by --config argument
  2. servers.yaml in the same directory as the executable
  3. ~/.config/ssh-commander/servers.yaml
• File permissions are set to user-only read/write (600)
• SSH key paths support ~ expansion to your home directory

1. Add a new server interactively:

ssh-commander add

2. Add a server non-interactively (great for scripts/automation):

ssh-commander add -y \
    --hostname web1.example.com \
    --username admin \
    --key-file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 \
    --tags prod,web

3. Edit an existing server in place:

ssh-commander edit web1.example.com --port 2222 --tags prod,web,frontend
ssh-commander edit web1.example.com --rename web1-new.example.com
ssh-commander edit db1.example.com --key-file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

4. List configured servers (with optional filter and machine-readable output):

ssh-commander list                       # pretty
ssh-commander list -t prod -o hosts      # one hostname per line
ssh-commander list -o json               # JSON dump for jq/scripting

5. Remove one or more servers (prompts for confirmation):

ssh-commander remove web1.example.com web2.example.com
ssh-commander remove old-host.example.com --yes  # no prompt

6. Test SSH connectivity to all (or a subset of) servers:

ssh-commander test
ssh-commander test -t prod --parallel 8

7. Show the resolved config file path:

ssh-commander config-path

1. Run a single command on all servers:

ssh-commander exec -c "uptime"

2. Run a command on servers with specific tags:

ssh-commander exec -c "uptime" -t prod,web

3. Run a command across many servers in parallel:

ssh-commander exec -c "uptime" --parallel 8

4. Run multiple commands from a file:

ssh-commander exec -f commands.txt

5. Run commands from file on specific tags, stopping on the first failure:

ssh-commander exec -f commands.txt -t staging --stop-on-error

Example commands.txt:

# This is a comment - it will be skipped.
uptime
df -h
free -m
who

6. Use a different config file:

ssh-commander --config prod-servers.yaml exec -c "docker ps"

All commands accept the following global options:

1. Check system status across all servers:

ssh-commander exec -c "systemctl status nginx"

2. Deploy updates:

ssh-commander exec -c "sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y"

3. Monitor disk space:

ssh-commander exec -c "df -h / /var /home"

4. Check running Docker containers:

ssh-commander exec -c "docker ps --format 'table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}\t{{.Ports}}'"

5. Execute a maintenance script:

# maintenance.txt
systemctl status nginx
df -h
free -m
find /var/log -type f -size +100M -exec ls -lh {} \;

# Run maintenance checks
ssh-commander exec -f maintenance.txt

SSH Commander uses colors to make output more readable:

• 🔵 Server names are highlighted in blue
• 🟢 Successful output is shown in green
• 🔴 Errors are displayed in red
• 🟣 Command execution status in purple

1. Password Storage:

   • Passwords in the config file should be treated with care
   • Consider using key-based authentication when possible
   • Use appropriate file permissions for your config file: chmod 600 servers.yaml

2. SSH Keys:

   • Key files should have proper permissions: chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
   • Consider using different keys for different server groups

3. Network Security:

   • Be mindful of firewalls and network policies
   • Use custom ports if needed
   • Consider using jump hosts for isolated networks

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch: git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -m 'Add amazing feature'
4. Push to the branch: git push origin feature/amazing-feature
5. Open a Pull Request

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0) - see the LICENSE file for details.

Key points of the GPL-3.0 license:

• ✅ You can use this software for commercial purposes
• ✅ You can modify the source code
• ✅ You can distribute your modifications
• ⚠️ You must disclose the source code of your modifications
• ⚠️ You must license your modifications under the GPL-3.0
• ⚠️ You must state the significant changes you made

If you encounter any issues or have questions:

1. Check the Issues page
2. Create a new issue with detailed information about your problem
3. Include your OS version and Python version when reporting bugs