Imagine we have dynamic number of hosts of pattern
test-1.mydomain.com
test-2.mydomain.com
test-3.mydomain.com
...
test-n.mydomain.com
I'd like to ssh on each of those machines by not using full name
ex. ssh test-7.mydomain.com
but simply by doing
ssh test-7
Is there a way to use ssh config to do pattern like aliases like this??
Yes!
Yes, there is a way to do this directly in your ssh configuration.
host allows PATTERNS
hostname allows TOKENS
How:
Add this snippet to your ssh configuration ~/.ssh/config:
# all test-* hosts should match to test-*.mydomain.example.com
host test-*
hostname %h.mydomain.example.com
Verify:
You can verify this with the -G flag to ssh. If your ssh is older and does not support -G you can try parsing verbose ssh output.
# if your ssh supports -G
% ssh test-17 -G | grep hostname
hostname test-17.mydomain.example.com
# if your ssh does not support -G
% ssh -v -v test-n blarg >/dev/null 2>&1 | grep resolv
debug2: resolving "test-n.mydomain.example.com" port 22
ssh: Could not resolve hostname test-n.mydomain.example.com: Name or service not known
Notes:
Ssh uses the first host line that matches. It is good practice to add your PATTERN host lines at the bottom of your configuration file.
If your test-n name patterns contain only a single character suffix, then you can use a ? pattern to make a less greedy match. test-? will match test-1 test-a test-z but not test-10
You can create a ssh config file and pre setting your servers.
See this tutorial, i hope it helps you!
ssh config
You can also create a function in your bash file for ssh access.
Like this:
function ssh_test () {
[[ $1 =~ ^('test-1'|'test-2'|'test-3')$ ]] || { echo 'Not a valid value !!' && return ;}
domain=$1.mydomain.com
ssh my_user#"$domain"
}
If it is an option for you, you could add a search domain in the resolv.conf file (I'm assuming you are on Linux).
You would need to add a line like this:
search mydomain.com
which will have SSH (and most other apps) look for test-n, then test-n.mydomain.com.
If you are not managing the resolv.conf file yourself (if you use systemd-networkd or NetworkManager for example), you will have to ajust the search domains in their configuration files).
Related
Is it possible to use Kubespray with Bastion but on custom port and with agent forwarding? If it is not supported, what changes does one need to do?
Always, since you can configure that at three separate levels: via the host user's ~/.ssh/config, via the entire playbook with group_vars, or as inline config (that is, on the command line or in the inventory file).
The ssh config is hopefully straightforward:
Host 1.2.* *.example.com # or whatever pattern matches the target instances
ProxyJump someuser#some-bastion:1234
# and then the Agent should happen automatically, unless you mean
# ForwardAgent yes
I'll speak to the inline config next, since it's a little simpler:
ansible-playbook -i whatever \
-e '{"ansible_ssh_common_args": "-o ProxyJump=\"someuser#jump-host:1234\""}' \
cluster.yaml
or via the inventory in the same way:
master-host-0 ansible_host=1.2.3.4 ansible_ssh_common_args="-o ProxyJump='someuser#jump-host:1234'"
or via group_vars, which you can either add to an existing group_vars/all.yml, or if it doesn't exist then create that group_vars directory containing the all.yml file as a child of the directory containing your inventory file
If you have more complex ssh config than you wish to encode in the inventory/command-line/group_vars, you can also instruct the ansible-invoked ssh to use a dedicated config file via the ansible_ssh_extra_args variable:
ansible-playbook -e '{"ansible_ssh_extra_args": "-F /path/to/special/ssh_config"}' ...
In my case where I needed to access the hosts on particular ports, I just had to modify the host's ~/.ssh/config to be:
Host 10.40.45.102
ForwardAgent yes
User root
ProxyCommand ssh -W %h:%p -p 44057 root#example.com
Host 10.40.45.104
ForwardAgent yes
User root
ProxyCommand ssh -W %h:%p -p 44058 root#example.com
Where 10.40.* was the internal IPs.
I've found lots of help showing how to configure .ssh/config to choose an identityFile based on the hostname I'm connecting to, but I connect to a large number of hosts, using one of two usernames. I want ssh to recognize what username I've selected, and select the matching IdentityFile.
I tried this:
Host admin#*
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/admin_id_rsa
Host chintchary#*
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/chintchary_id_rsa
using ssh -v I can see that the config is being ignored.
You have the syntax wrong in few aspects:
There are no colons : between keys and values
User is not part of Host, but it can be matched using Match block
Your config should look like this:
Match user admin
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/admin_id_rsa
Match user chintchary
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/chintchary_id_rsa
All of it can be read from your manual page for ssh_config(5). Afterward make sure that your file is read. With your version, it should yell about bad syntax.
Alternative for older openssh
If your openSSH version doesn't support Match blocks, you need to make some ugly hacks using bash functions, something like this one:
ssh(){
expr match "$#" '.*admin#.*' && I="-i ~/.ssh/admin_id_rsa"
expr match "$#" '.*chintchary#.*' && I="-i ~/.ssh/chintchary_id_rsa"
/usr/bin/ssh $I $#
}
I'm currently running a bunch of:
sudo ssh -L PORT:IP:PORT root#IP
where IP is the target of a secured machine, and PORT represents the ports I'm forwarding.
This is because I use a lot of applications which I cannot access without this forwarding. After performing this, I can access through localhost:PORT.
The main problem occured now that I actually have 4 of these ports that I have to forward.
My solution is to open 4 shells and constantly search my history backwards to look for exactly which ports need to be forwarded etc, and then run this command - one in each shell (having to fill in passwords etc).
If only I could do something like:
sudo ssh -L PORT1+PORT2+PORT+3:IP:PORT+PORT2+PORT3 root#IP
then that would already really help.
Is there a way to make it easier to do this?
The -L option can be specified multiple times within the same command. Every time with different ports. I.e. ssh -L localPort0:ip:remotePort0 -L localPort1:ip:remotePort1 ...
Exactly what NaN answered, you specify multiple -L arguments. I do this all the time. Here is an example of multi port forwarding:
ssh remote-host -L 8822:REMOTE_IP_1:22 -L 9922:REMOTE_IP_2:22
Note: This is same as -L localhost:8822:REMOTE_IP_1:22 if you don't specify localhost.
Now with this, you can now (from another terminal) do:
ssh localhost -p 8822
to connect to REMOTE_IP_1 on port 22
and similarly
ssh localhost -p 9922
to connect to REMOTE_IP_2 on port 22
Of course, there is nothing stopping you from wrapping this into a script or automate it if you have many different host/ports to forward and to certain specific ones.
For people who are forwarding multiple port through the same host can setup something like this in their ~/.ssh/config
Host all-port-forwards
Hostname 10.122.0.3
User username
LocalForward PORT_1 IP:PORT_1
LocalForward PORT_2 IP:PORT_2
LocalForward PORT_3 IP:PORT_3
LocalForward PORT_4 IP:PORT_4
and it becomes a simple ssh all-port-forwards away.
You can use the following bash function (just add it to your ~/.bashrc):
function pfwd {
for i in ${#:2}
do
echo Forwarding port $i
ssh -N -L $i:localhost:$i $1 &
done
}
Usage example:
pfwd hostname {6000..6009}
jbchichoko and yuval have given viable solutions. But jbchichoko's answer isn't a flexible answer as a function, and the opened tunnels by yuval's answer cannot be shut down by ctrl+c because it runs in the background. I give my solution below solving both the two flaws:
Defing a function in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:
# fsshmap multiple ports
function fsshmap() {
echo -n "-L 1$1:127.0.0.1:$1 " > $HOME/sh/sshports.txt
for ((i=($1+1);i<$2;i++))
do
echo -n "-L 1$i:127.0.0.1:$i " >> $HOME/sh/sshports.txt
done
line=$(head -n 1 $HOME/sh/sshports.txt)
cline="ssh "$3" "$line
echo $cline
eval $cline
}
A example of running the function:
fsshmap 6000 6010 hostname
Result of this example:
You can access 127.0.0.1:16000~16009 the same as hostname:6000~6009
In my company both me and my team members need access to 3 ports of a non-reachable "target" server so I created a permanent tunnel (that is a tunnel that can run in background indefinitely, see params -f and -N) from a reachable server to the target one. On the command line of the reachable server I executed:
ssh root#reachableIP -f -N -L *:8822:targetIP:22 -L *:9006:targetIP:9006 -L *:9100:targetIP:9100
I used user root but your own user will work. You will have to enter the password of the chosen user (even if you are already connected to the reachable server with that user).
Now port 8822 of the reachable machine corresponds to port 22 of the target one (for ssh/PuTTY/WinSCP) and ports 9006 and 9100 on the reachable machine correspond to the same ports of the target one (they host two web services in my case).
Another one liner that I use and works on debian:
ssh user#192.168.1.10 $(for j in $(seq 20000 1 20100 ) ; do echo " -L$j:127.0.0.1:$j " ; done | tr -d "\n")
One of the benefits of logging into a server with port forwarding is facilitating the use of Jupyter Notebook. This link provides an excellent description of how to it. Here I would like to do some summary and expansion for all of you guys to refer.
Situation 1. Login from a local machine named Host-A (e.g. your own laptop) to a remote work machine named Host-B.
ssh user#Host-B -L port_A:localhost:port_B
jupyter notebook --NotebookApp.token='' --no-browser --port=port_B
Then you can open a browser and enter: http://localhost:port_A/ to do your work on Host-B but see it in Host-A.
Situation 2. Login from a local machine named Host-A (e.g. your own laptop) to a remote login machine named Host-B and from there login to the remote work machine named Host-C. This is usually the case for most analytical servers within universities and can be achieved by using two ssh -L connected with -t.
ssh -L port_A:localhost:port_B user#Host-B -t ssh -L port_B:localhost:port_C user#Host-C
jupyter notebook --NotebookApp.token='' --no-browser --port=port_C
Then you can open a browser and enter: http://localhost:port_A/ to do your work on Host-C but see it in Host-A.
Situation 3. Login from a local machine named Host-A (e.g. your own laptop) to a remote login machine named Host-B and from there login to the remote work machine named Host-C and finally login to the remote work machine Host-D. This is not usually the case but might happen sometime. It's an extension of Situation 2 and the same logic can be applied on more machines.
ssh -L port_A:localhost:port_B user#Host-B -t ssh -L port_B:localhost:port_C user#Host-C -t ssh -L port_C:localhost:port_D user#Host-D
jupyter notebook --NotebookApp.token='' --no-browser --port=port_D
Then you can open a browser and enter: http://localhost:port_A/ to do your work on Host-D but see it in Host-A.
Note that port_A, port_B, port_C, port_D can be random numbers except common port numbers listed here. In Situation 1, port_A and port_B can be the same to simplify the procedure.
Here is a solution inspired from the one from Yuval Atzmon.
It has a few benefits over the initial solution:
first it creates a single background process and not one per port
it generates the alias that allows you to kill your tunnels
it binds only to 127.0.0.1 which is a little more secure
You may use it as:
tnl your.remote.com 1234
tnl your.remote.com {1234,1235}
tnl your.remote.com {1234..1236}
And finally kill them all with tnlkill.
function tnl {
TUNNEL="ssh -N "
echo Port forwarding for ports:
for i in ${#:2}
do
echo " - $i"
TUNNEL="$TUNNEL -L 127.0.0.1:$i:localhost:$i"
done
TUNNEL="$TUNNEL $1"
$TUNNEL &
PID=$!
alias tnlkill="kill $PID && unalias tnlkill"
}
An alternative approach is to tell ssh to work as a SOCKS proxy using the -D flag.
That way you would be able to connect to any remote network address/port accesible through the ssh server as long as the client applications are able to go through a SOCKS proxy (or work with something like socksify).
If you want a simple solution that runs in the background and is easy to kill - use a control socket
# start
$ ssh -f -N -M -S $SOCKET -L localhost:9200:localhost:9200 $HOST
# stop
$ ssh -S $SOCKET -O exit $HOST
I've developed loco for help with ssh forwarding. It can be used to share ports 5000 and 7000 on remote locally at the same ports:
pip install loco
loco listen SSHINFO -r 5000 -r 7000
First It can be done using Parallel Execution by xargs -P 0.
Create a file for binding the ports e.g.
localhost:8080:localhost:8080
localhost:9090:localhost:8080
then run
xargs -P 0 -I xxx ssh -vNTCL xxx <REMOTE> < port-forward
or you can do a one-liner
echo localhost:{8080,9090} | tr ' ' '\n' | sed 's/.*/&:&/' | xargs -P 0 -I xxx ssh -vNTCL xxx <REMOTE>
pros independent ssh port-forwarding, they are independent == avoiding Single Point of Failure
cons each ssh port-forwarding is forked separately, somehow not efficient
second it can be done using curly brackets expansion feature in bash
echo "ssh -vNTC $(echo localhost:{10,20,30,40,50} | perl -lpe 's/[^ ]+/-L $&:$&/g') <REMOTE>"
# output
ssh -vNTC -L localhost:10:localhost:10 -L localhost:20:localhost:20 -L localhost:30:localhost:30 -L localhost:40:localhost:40 -L localhost:50:localhost:50 <REMOTE>
real example
echo "-vNTC $(echo localhost:{8080,9090} | perl -lpe 's/[^ ]+/-L $&:$&/g') gitlab" | xargs ssh
Forwarding 8080 and 9090 to gitlab server.
pros one single fork == efficient
cons by closing this process (ssh) all forwarding are closed == Single Point of Failure
You can use this zsh function (probably works with bash, too)(Put it in ~/.zshrc):
ashL () {
local a=() i
for i in "$#[2,-1]"
do
a+=(-L "${i}:localhost:${i}")
done
autossh -M 0 -o "ServerAliveInterval 30" -o "ServerAliveCountMax 3" -NT "$1" "$a[#]"
}
Examples:
ashL db#114.39.161.24 6480 7690 7477
ashL db#114.39.161.24 {6000..6050} # Forwards the whole range. This is simply shell syntax sugar.
I'm trying to configure OpenLDAP client on SLED10 host and faced with some problems. I've specified URI field in config like URI ldap://172.16.8.103:7323 but ldapsearch bails that it Can't contact LDAP server. With ldapsearch -H ldap://172.168.8.103:7323 it works fine. Setting
host 172.16.8.103
port 7323
instead of URI returns the same error message. Moreover, tcpdump tells that no LDAP requests are performed at all in this case. Other settings in config like BASE work fine. What can cause such problem and how to solve it?
Clearly ldapsearch isn't finding the ldap.conf file.
To know, what configuration file does ldapsearch consults, you may use one of this commands:
1) strings $(ldd $(readlink -e $(which ldapsearch)) | awk -F'(=>|[[:space:]]\\()' '$2 ~ /ldap/ {print $2}') | fgrep .conf
2) strace ldapsearch -x 2>&1 | fgrep .conf | grep -v '\(resolv\|nsswitch\|host\).conf'
In some unlikely cases you may need to install binutils package (by default it is installed on most distributives) or strace package first to run appropriate commands.
And yes you can use ".ldaprc" in your home directory and forget about searching of theoretically unpredictable system-wide path to ldap.conf at all.
I'm not sure that the version of openldap in SLES 10 supports this, but in SLES 11 you may specify the config file thru a env variable.
# LDAPCONF=/etc/ldap.conf ldapsearch
When connecting to remote hosts via ssh, I frequently want to bring a file on that system to the local system for viewing or processing. Is there a way to copy the file over without (a) opening a new terminal/pausing the ssh session (b) authenticating again to either the local or remote hosts which works (c) even when one or both of the hosts is behind a NAT router?
The goal is to take advantage of as much of the current state as possible: that there is a connection between the two machines, that I'm authenticated on both, that I'm in the working directory of the file---so I don't have to open another terminal and copy and paste the remote host and path in, which is what I do now. The best solution also wouldn't require any setup before the session began, but if the setup was a one-time or able to be automated, than that's perfectly acceptable.
zssh (a ZMODEM wrapper over openssh) does exactly what you want.
Install zssh and use it instead of openssh (which I assume that you normally use)
You'll have to have the lrzsz package installed on both systems.
Then, to transfer a file zyxel.png from remote to local host:
antti#local:~$ zssh remote
Press ^# (C-Space) to enter file transfer mode, then ? for help
...
antti#remote:~$ sz zyxel.png
**B00000000000000
^#
zssh > rz
Receiving: zyxel.png
Bytes received: 104036/ 104036 BPS:16059729
Transfer complete
antti#remote:~$
Uploading goes similarly, except that you just switch rz(1) and sz(1).
Putty users can try Le Putty, which has similar functionality.
On a linux box I use the ssh-agent and sshfs. You need to setup the sshd to accept connections with key pairs. Then you use ssh-add to add you key to the ssh-agent so you don't have type your password everytime. Be sure to use -t seconds, so the key doesn't stay loaded forever.
ssh-add -t 3600 /home/user/.ssh/ssh_dsa
After that,
sshfs hostname:/ /PathToMountTo/
will mount the server file system on your machine so you have access to it.
Personally, I wrote a small bash script that add my key and mount the servers I use the most, so when I start to work I just have to launch the script and type my passphrase.
Using some little known and rarely used features of the openssh
implementation you can accomplish precisely what you want!
takes advantage of the current state
can use the working directory where you are
does not require any tunneling setup before the session begins
does not require opening a separate terminal or connection
can be used as a one-time deal in an interactive session or can be used as part of an automated session
You should only type what is at each of the local>, remote>, and
ssh> prompts in the examples below.
local> ssh username#remote
remote> ~C
ssh> -L6666:localhost:6666
remote> nc -l 6666 < /etc/passwd
remote> ~^Z
[suspend ssh]
[1]+ Stopped ssh username#remote
local> (sleep 1; nc localhost 6666 > /tmp/file) & fg
[2] 17357
ssh username#remote
remote> exit
[2]- Done ( sleep 1; nc localhost 6666 > /tmp/file )
local> cat /tmp/file
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
...
Or, more often you want to go the other direction, for example if you
want to do something like transfer your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file from
your local machine to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file of the remote
machine.
local> ssh username#remote
remote> ~C
ssh> -R5555:localhost:5555
remote> ~^Z
[suspend ssh]
[1]+ Stopped ssh username#remote
local> nc -l 5555 < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub &
[2] 26607
local> fg
ssh username#remote
remote> nc localhost 5555 >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
remote> cat ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2ZQQQQBIwAAAQEAsgaVp8mnWVvpGKhfgwHTuOObyfYSe8iFvksH6BGWfMgy8poM2+5sTL6FHI7k0MXmfd7p4rzOL2R4q9yjG+Hl2PShjkjAVb32Ss5ZZ3BxHpk30+0HackAHVqPEJERvZvqC3W2s4aKU7ae4WaG1OqZHI1dGiJPJ1IgFF5bWbQl8CP9kZNAHg0NJZUCnJ73udZRYEWm5MEdTIz0+Q5tClzxvXtV4lZBo36Jo4vijKVEJ06MZu+e2WnCOqsfdayY7laiT0t/UsulLNJ1wT+Euejl+3Vft7N1/nWptJn3c4y83c4oHIrsLDTIiVvPjAj5JTkyH1EA2pIOxsKOjmg2Maz7Pw== username#local
A little bit of explanation is in order.
The first step is to open a LocalForward; if you don't already have
one established then you can use the ~C escape character to open an
ssh command line which will give you the following commands:
remote> ~C
ssh> help
Commands:
-L[bind_address:]port:host:hostport Request local forward
-R[bind_address:]port:host:hostport Request remote forward
-D[bind_address:]port Request dynamic forward
-KR[bind_address:]port Cancel remote forward
In this example I establish a LocalForward on port 6666 of localhost
for both the client and the server; the port number can be any
arbitrary open port.
The nc command is from the netcat package; it is described as the
"TCP/IP swiss army knife"; it is a simple, yet very flexible and
useful program. Make it a standard part of your unix toolbelt.
At this point nc is listening on port 6666 and waiting for another
program to connect to that port so it can send the contents of
/etc/passwd.
Next we make use of another escape character ~^Z which is tilde
followed by control-Z. This temporarily suspends the ssh process and
drops us back into our shell.
One back on the local system you can use nc to connect to the
forwarded port 6666. Note the lack of a -l in this case because that
option tells nc to listen on a port as if it were a server which is
not what we want; instead we want to just use nc as a client to
connect to the already listening nc on the remote side.
The rest of the magic around the nc command is required because if
you recall above I said that the ssh process was temporarily
suspended, so the & will put the whole (sleep + nc) expression
into the background and the sleep gives you enough time for ssh to
return to the foreground with fg.
In the second example the idea is basically the same except we set up
a tunnel going the other direction using -R instead of -L so that
we establish a RemoteForward. And then on the local side is where
you want to use the -l argument to nc.
The escape character by default is ~ but you can change that with:
-e escape_char
Sets the escape character for sessions with a pty (default: ‘~’). The escape character is only recognized at the beginning of a line. The escape character followed by a dot
(‘.’) closes the connection; followed by control-Z suspends the connection; and followed by itself sends the escape character once. Setting the character to “none” disables any
escapes and makes the session fully transparent.
A full explanation of the commands available with the escape characters is available in the ssh manpage
ESCAPE CHARACTERS
When a pseudo-terminal has been requested, ssh supports a number of functions through the use of an escape character.
A single tilde character can be sent as ~~ or by following the tilde by a character other than those described below. The escape character must always follow a newline to be interpreted
as special. The escape character can be changed in configuration files using the EscapeChar configuration directive or on the command line by the -e option.
The supported escapes (assuming the default ‘~’) are:
~. Disconnect.
~^Z Background ssh.
~# List forwarded connections.
~& Background ssh at logout when waiting for forwarded connection / X11 sessions to terminate.
~? Display a list of escape characters.
~B Send a BREAK to the remote system (only useful for SSH protocol version 2 and if the peer supports it).
~C Open command line. Currently this allows the addition of port forwardings using the -L, -R and -D options (see above). It also allows the cancellation of existing remote port-
forwardings using -KR[bind_address:]port. !command allows the user to execute a local command if the PermitLocalCommand option is enabled in ssh_config(5). Basic help is avail‐
able, using the -h option.
~R Request rekeying of the connection (only useful for SSH protocol version 2 and if the peer supports it).
Using ControlMaster (the -M switch) is the best solution, way simpler and easier than the rest of the answers here. It allows you to share a single connection among multiple sessions. Sounds like it does what the poster wants. You still have to type the scp or sftp command line though. Try it. I use it for all of my sshing.
In order to do this I have my home router set up to forward port 22 back to my home machine (which is firewalled to only accept ssh connections from my work machine) and I also have an account set up with DynDNS to provide Dynamic DNS that will resolve to my home IP automatically.
Then when I ssh into my work computer, the first thing I do is run a script that starts an ssh-agent (if your server doesn't do that automatically). The script I run is:
#!/bin/bash
ssh-agent sh -c 'ssh-add < /dev/null && bash'
It asks for my ssh key passphrase so that I don't have to type it in every time. You don't need that step if you use an ssh key without a passphrase.
For the rest of the session, sending files back to your home machine is as simple as
scp file_to_send.txt your.domain.name:~/
Here is a hack called ssh-xfer which addresses the exact problem, but requires patching OpenSSH, which is a nonstarter as far as I'm concerned.
Here is my preferred solution to this problem. Set up a reverse ssh tunnel upon creating the ssh session. This is made easy by two bash function: grabfrom() needs to be defined on the local host, while grab() should be defined on the remote host. You can add any other ssh variables you use (e.g. -X or -Y) as you see fit.
function grabfrom() { ssh -R 2202:127.0.0.1:22 ${#}; };
function grab() { scp -P 2202 $# localuser#127.0.0.1:~; };
Usage:
localhost% grabfrom remoteuser#remotehost
password: <remote password goes here>
remotehost% grab somefile1 somefile2 *.txt
password: <local password goes here>
Positives:
It works without special software on either host beyond OpenSSH
It works when local host is behind a NAT router
It can be implemented as a pair of two one-line bash function
Negatives:
It uses a fixed port number so:
won't work with multiple connections to remote host
might conflict with a process using that port on the remote host
It requires localhost accept ssh connections
It requires a special command on initiation the session
It doesn't implicitly handle authentication to the localhost
It doesn't allow one to specify the destination directory on localhost
If you grab from multiple localhosts to the same remote host, ssh won't like the keys changing
Future work:
This is still pretty kludgy. Obviously, it would be possible to handle the authentication issue by setting up ssh keys appropriately and it's even easier to allow the specification of a remote directory by adding a parameter to grab()
More difficult is addressing the other negatives. It would be nice to pick a dynamic port but as far as I can tell there is no elegant way to pass that port to the shell on the remote host; As best as I can tell, OpenSSH doesn't allow you to set arbitrary environment variables on the remote host and bash can't take environment variables from a command line argument. Even if you could pick a dynamic port, there is no way to ensure it isn't used on the remote host without connecting first.
You can use SCP protocol for tranfering a file.you can refer this link
http://tekheez.biz/scp-protocol-in-unix/
The best way to use this you can expose your files over HTTP and download it from another server, you can achieve this using ZSSH Python library,
ZSSH - ZIP over SSH (Simple Python script to exchange files between servers).
Install it using PIP.
python3 -m pip install zssh
Run this command from your remote server.
python3 -m zssh -as --path /desktop/path_to_expose
It will give you an URL to execute from another server.
In the local system or another server where you need to download those files and extract.
python3 -m zssh -ad --path /desktop/path_to_download --zip http://example.com/temp_file.zip
For more about this library: https://pypi.org/project/zssh/
You should be able to set up public & private keys so that no auth is needed.
Which way you do it depends on security requirements, etc (be aware that there are linux/unix ssh worms which will look at keys to find other hosts they can attack).
I do this all the time from behind both linksys and dlink routers. I think you may need to change a couple of settings but it's not a big deal.
Use the -M switch.
"Places the ssh client into 'master' mode for connection shar-ing. Multiple -M options places ssh into ``master'' mode with confirmation required before slave connections are accepted. Refer to the description of ControlMaster in ssh_config(5) for details."
I don't quite see how that answers the OP's question - can you expand on this a bit, David?