I want to use Ansible as part of another Python software. in that software I have a hosts list with their user / password.
Is there a way to pass the user / pass of the SSH connection to the Ansible ad-hoc command or write it in any file in encrypted way?
Or do i understand it all wrong, and the only way to do it is with SSH certification?
The docs say you can specify the password via the command line:
-k, --ask-pass.
ask for connection password
Ansible can also store the password in the ansible_password variable on a per-host basis.
you can use --extra-vars like this:
$ ansible all --inventory=10.0.1.2, -m ping \
--extra-vars "ansible_user=root ansible_password=yourpassword"
If you're authenticating to a Linux host that's joined to a Microsoft Active Directory domain, this command line works.
ansible --module-name ping --extra-vars 'ansible_user=domain\user ansible_password=PASSWORD' --inventory 10.10.6.184, all
As mentioned before you can use --extra-vars (-e) , but instead of specifying the pwd on the commandline so it doesn't end up in the history files you can save it to an environment variable. This way it also goes away when you close the session.
read -s PASS
ansible windows -i hosts -m win_ping -e "ansible_password=$PASS"
I used the command
ansible -i inventory example -m ping -u <your_user_name> --ask-pass
And it will ask for your password.
For anyone who gets the error:
to use the 'ssh' connection type with passwords, you must install the sshpass program
On MacOS, you can follow below instructions to install sshpass:
Download the Source Code
Extract it and cd into the directory
./configure
sudo make install
I am running into this error of:
$ git push heroku master
Warning: Permanently added the RSA host key for IP address '50.19.85.132' to the list of known hosts.
! Your key with fingerprint b7:fd:15:25:02:8e:5f:06:4f:1c:af:f3:f0:c3:c2:65 is not authorized to access bitstarter.
I tried to add the keys and I get this error below:
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.
Did You Start ssh-agent?
You might need to start ssh-agent before you run the ssh-add command:
eval `ssh-agent -s`
ssh-add
Note that this will start the agent for msysgit Bash on Windows. If you're using a different shell or operating system, you might need to use a variant of the command, such as those listed in the other answers.
See the following answers:
ssh-add complains: Could not open a connection to your authentication agent
Git push requires username and password (contains detailed instructions on how to use ssh-agent)
How to run (git/ssh) authentication agent?.
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent
To automatically start ssh-agent and allow a single instance to work in multiple console windows, see Start ssh-agent on login.
Why do we need to use eval instead of just ssh-agent?
SSH needs two things in order to use ssh-agent: an ssh-agent instance running in the background, and an environment variable set that tells SSH which socket it should use to connect to the agent (SSH_AUTH_SOCK IIRC). If you just run ssh-agent then the agent will start, but SSH will have no idea where to find it.
from this comment.
Public vs Private Keys
Also, whenever I use ssh-add, I always add private keys to it. The file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub looks like a public key, I'm not sure if that will work. Do you have a ~/.ssh/id_rsa file? If you open it in a text editor, does it say it's a private key?
I tried the other solutions to no avail. I made more research and found that the following command worked. I am using Windows 7 and Git Bash.
eval $(ssh-agent)
More information in: https://coderwall.com/p/rdi_wq (web archive version)
The following command worked for me. I am using CentOS.
exec ssh-agent bash
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent
To resolve this error:
bash:
$ eval `ssh-agent -s`
tcsh:
$ eval `ssh-agent -c`
Then use ssh-add as you normally would.
Hot Tip:
I was always forgetting what to type for the above ssh-agent commands, so I created an alias in my .bashrc file like this:
alias ssh-agent-cyg='eval `ssh-agent -s`'
Now instead of using ssh-agent, I can use ssh-agent-cyg
E.g.
$ ssh-agent-cyg
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-n16KsxjuTMiM/agent.32394; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=32395; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 32395;
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/my_pk
Original Source of fix:
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2011-10/msg00313.html
MsysGit or Cygwin
If you're using Msysgit or Cygwin you can find a good tutorial at SSH-Agent in msysgit and cygwin and bash:
Add a file called .bashrc to your home folder.
Open the file and paste in:
#!/bin/bash
eval `ssh-agent -s`
ssh-add
This assumes that your key is in the conventional ~/.ssh/id_rsa location. If it isn't, include a full path after the ssh-add command.
Add to or create file ~/.ssh/config with the contents
ForwardAgent yes
In the original tutorial the ForwardAgent param is Yes, but it's a typo. Use all lowercase or you'll get errors.
Restart Msysgit. It will ask you to enter your passphrase once, and that's it (until you end the session, or your ssh-agent is killed.)
Mac/OS X
If you don't want to start a new ssh-agent every time you open a terminal, check out Keychain. I'm on a Mac now, so I used the tutorial ssh-agent with zsh & keychain on Mac OS X to set it up, but I'm sure a Google search will have plenty of info for Windows.
Update: A better solution on Mac is to add your key to the Mac OS Keychain:
ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Simple as that.
Run
ssh-agent bash
ssh-add
To get more details you can search
ssh-agent
or run
man ssh-agent
ssh-add and ssh (assuming you are using the openssh implementations) require an environment variable to know how to talk to the ssh agent. If you started the agent in a different command prompt window to the one you're using now, or if you started it incorrectly, neither ssh-add nor ssh will see that environment variable set (because the environment variable is set locally to the command prompt it's set in).
You don't say which version of ssh you're using, but if you're using cygwin's, you can use this recipe from SSH Agent on Cygwin:
# Add to your Bash config file
SSHAGENT=/usr/bin/ssh-agent
SSHAGENTARGS="-s"
if [ -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" -a -x "$SSHAGENT" ]; then
eval `$SSHAGENT $SSHAGENTARGS`
trap "kill $SSH_AGENT_PID" 0
fi
This will start an agent automatically for each new command prompt window that you open (which is suboptimal if you open multiple command prompts in one session, but at least it should work).
I faced the same problem for Linux, and here is what I did:
Basically, the command ssh-agent starts the agent, but it doesn't really set the environment variables for it to run. It just outputs those variables to the shell.
You need to:
eval `ssh-agent`
and then do ssh-add. See Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.
Instead of using ssh-agent -s, I used eval `ssh-agent -s` to solve this issue.
Here is what I performed step by step (step 2 onwards on Git Bash):
Cleaned up my .ssh folder at C:\user\<username>\.ssh\
Generated a new SSH key:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "xyz#abc.com"
Check if any process id(ssh agent) is already running.
ps aux | grep ssh
(Optional) If found any in step 3, kill those
kill <pids>
Started the SSH agent
$ eval `ssh-agent -s`
Added SSH key generated in step 2 to the SSH agent
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Try to do the following steps:
Open Git Bash and run: cd ~/.ssh
Try to run agent: eval $(ssh-agent)
Right now, you can run the following command: ssh-add -l
In Windows 10 I tried all answers listed here, but none of them seemed to work. In fact, they give a clue. To solve a problem, simply you need three commands. The idea of this problem is that ssh-add needs the SSH_AUTH_SOCK and SSH_AGENT_PID environment variables to be set with the current ssh-agent sock file path and pid number.
ssh-agent -s > temp.txt
This will save the output of ssh-agent in a file. The text file content will be something like this:
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-kjmxRb2764/agent.2764; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=3044; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 3044;
Copy something like "/tmp/ssh-kjmxRb2764/agent.2764" from the text file and run the following command directly in the console:
set SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-kjmxRb2764/agent.2764
Copy something like "3044" from the text file and run the following command directly in the console:
set SSH_AGENT_PID=3044
Now when environment variables (SSH_AUTH_SOCK and SSH_AGENT_PID) are set for the current console session, run your ssh-add command and it will not fail again to connect to ssh agent.
One thing I came across was that eval did not work for me using Cygwin, what worked for me was ssh-agent ssh-add id_rsa.
After that I came across an issue that my private key was too open, the solution I managed to find for that (from here):
chgrp Users id_rsa
as well as
chmod 600 id_rsa
finally I was able to use:
ssh-agent ssh-add id_rsa
For Windows users, I found cmd eval `ssh-agent -s` didn't work, but using Git Bash worked a treat:
eval `ssh-agent -s`; ssh-add KEY_LOCATION
And making sure the Windows service "OpenSSH Key Management" wasn't disabled.
To amplify on n3o's answer for Windows 7...
My problem was indeed that some required environment variables weren't set, and n3o is correct that ssh-agent tells you how to set those environment variables, but doesn't actually set them.
Since Windows doesn't let you do "eval," here's what to do instead:
Redirect the output of ssh-agent to a batch file with
ssh-agent > temp.bat
Now use a text editor such as Notepad to edit temp.bat. For each of the first two lines:
Insert the word "set" and a space at the beginning of the line.
Delete the first semicolon and everything that follows.
Now delete the third line. Your temp.bat should look something like this:
set SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-EorQv10636/agent.10636
set SSH_AGENT_PID=8608
Run temp.bat. This will set the environment variables that are needed for ssh-add to work.
I just got this working. Open your ~/.ssh/config file.
Append the following-
Host github.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_rsa
The page that gave me the hint Set up SSH for Git
said that the single space indentation is important... though I had a configuration in here from Heroku that did not have that space and works properly.
If you follow these instructions, your problem would be solved.
If you’re on a Mac or Linux machine, type:
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
If you’re on a Windows machine, type:
ssh-agent -s
I had the same problem on Ubuntu and the other solutions didn't help me.
I finally realized what my problem was. I had created my SSH keys in the /root/.ssh folder, so even when I ran ssh-add as root, it couldn't do its work and kept saying:
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.
I created my SSH public and private keys in /home/myUsername/ folder and I used
ssh-agent /bin/sh
Then I ran
ssh-add /home/myUsername/.ssh/id_rsa
And problem was solved this way.
Note: For accessing your repository in Git, add your Git password when you are creating SSH keys with ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your Git email here".
Let me offer another solution. If you have just installed Git 1.8.2.2 or thereabouts, and you want to enable SSH, follow the well-writen directions.
Everything through to Step 5.6 where you might encounter a slight snag. If an SSH agent is already be running you could get the following error message when you restart bash
Could not open a connection to your authentication agent
If you do, use the following command to see if more than one ssh-agent process is running
ps aux | grep ssh
If you see more than one ssh-agent service, you will need to kill all of these processes. Use the kill command as follows (the PID will be unique on your computer)
kill <PID>
Example:
kill 1074
After you have removed all of the ssh-agent processes, run the px aux | grep ssh command again to be sure they are gone, then restart Bash.
Voila, you should now get something like this:
Initializing new SSH agent...
succeeded
Enter passphrase for /c/Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa:
Now you can continue on Step 5.7 and beyond.
This will run the SSH agent and authenticate only the first time you need it, not every time you open your Bash terminal. It can be used for any program using SSH in general, including ssh itself and scp. Just add this to /etc/profile.d/ssh-helper.sh:
ssh-auth() {
# Start the SSH agent only if not running
[[ -z $(ps | grep ssh-agent) ]] && echo $(ssh-agent) > /tmp/ssh-agent-data.sh
# Identify the running SSH agent
[[ -z $SSH_AGENT_PID ]] && source /tmp/ssh-agent-data.sh > /dev/null
# Authenticate (change key path or make a symlink if needed)
[[ -z $(ssh-add -l | grep "/home/$(whoami)/.ssh/id_rsa") ]] && ssh-add
}
# You can repeat this for other commands using SSH
git() { ssh-auth; command git "$#"; }
Note: this is an answer to this question, which has been merged with this one.
That question was for Windows 7, meaning my answer was for Cygwin/MSYS/MSYS2. This one seems for some Unix, where I wouldn't expect the SSH agent needing to be managed like this.
The basic solution to run ssh-agent is answered in many answers. However runing ssh-agent many times (per each opened terminal or per remote login) will create a many copies ot ssh-agent running in memory. The scripts which is suggested to avoid that problem is long and need to write and/or copy separated file or need to write too many strings in ~/.profile or ~/.schrc. Let me suggest simple two string solution:
For sh, bash, etc:
# ~/.profile
if ! pgrep -q -U `whoami` -x 'ssh-agent'; then ssh-agent -s > ~/.ssh-agent.sh; fi
. ~/.ssh-agent.sh
For csh, tcsh, etc:
# ~/.schrc
sh -c 'if ! pgrep -q -U `whoami` -x 'ssh-agent'; then ssh-agent -c > ~/.ssh-agent.tcsh; fi'
eval `cat ~/.ssh-agent.tcsh`
What is here:
search the process ssh-agent by name and by current user
create appropriate shell script file by calling ssh-agent and run ssh-agent itself if no current user ssh-agent process found
evaluate created shell script which configure appropriate environment
It is not necessary to protect created shell script ~/.ssh-agent.tcsh or ~/.ssh-agent.sh from another users access because: at-first communication with ssh-agent is processed through protected socket which is not accessible to another users, and at-second another users can found ssh-agent socket simple by enumeration files in /tmp/ directory. As far as about access to ssh-agent process it is the same things.
In Windows 10, using the Command Prompt terminal, the following works for me:
ssh-agent cmd
ssh-add
You should then be asked for a passphrase after this:
Enter passphrase for /c/Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa:
Try the following:
ssh-agent sh -c 'ssh-add && git push heroku master'
Use parameter -A when you connect to server, example:
ssh -A root#myhost
from man page :
-A Enables forwarding of the authentication agent connection.
This can also be specified on a per-host basis in a configuration file.
Agent forwarding should be enabled with caution. Users with the ability to bypass file permissions on the remote host (for the agent's
UNIX-domain socket) can access the local agent through the forwarded
connection. An attacker cannot obtain key material from the agent,
however they can perform operations on the keys that enable them to
authenticate using the identities loaded into the agent.
I had this problem, when I started ssh-agent, when it was already running. It seems that the multiple instances conflict with each other.
To see if ssh-agent is already running, check the value of the SSH_AGENT_SOCK environment variable with:
echo $SSH_AGENT_SOCK
If it is set, then the agent is presumably running.
To check if you have more than one ssh-agent running, you can review:
ps -ef | grep ssh
Of course, then you should kill any additional instances that you created.
Read user456814's answer for explanations. Here I only try to automate the fix.
If you using a Cygwin terminal with Bash, add the following to the $HOME/.bashrc file. This only starts ssh-agent once in the first Bash terminal and adds the keys to ssh-agent. (I am not sure if this is required on Linux.)
###########################
# start ssh-agent for
# ssh authentication with github.com
###########################
SSH_AUTH_SOCK_FILE=/tmp/SSH_AUTH_SOCK.sh
if [ ! -e $SSH_AUTH_SOCK_FILE ]; then
# need to find SSH_AUTH_SOCK again.
# restarting is an easy option
pkill ssh-agent
fi
# check if already running
SSH_AGENT_PID=`pgrep ssh-agent`
if [ "x$SSH_AGENT_PID" == "x" ]; then
# echo "not running. starting"
eval $(ssh-agent -s) > /dev/null
rm -f $SSH_AUTH_SOCK_FILE
echo "export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" > $SSH_AUTH_SOCK_FILE
ssh-add $HOME/.ssh/github.com_id_rsa 2>&1 > /dev/null
#else
# echo "already running"
fi
source $SSH_AUTH_SOCK_FILE
Don’t forget to add your correct keys in the "ssh-add" command.
I had a similar problem when I was trying to get this to work on Windows to connect to the stash via SSH.
Here is the solution that worked for me.
Turns out I was running the Pageant ssh agent on my Windows box - I would check what you are running. I suspect it is Pageant as it comes as default with PuTTY and WinSCP.
The ssh-add does not work from command line with this type of agent
You need to add the private key via the Pageant UI window which you can get by double-clicking the Pageant icon in the taskbar (once it is started).
Before you add the key to Pageant you need to convert it to PPK format. Full instructions are available here How to convert SSH key to ppk format
That is it. Once I uploaded my key to stash I was able to use Sourcetree to create a local repository and clone the remote.
For Bash built into Windows 10, I added this to file .bash_profile:
if [ -z $SSH_AUTH_SOCK ]; then
if [ -r ~/.ssh/env ]; then
source ~/.ssh/env
if [ `ps -p $SSH_AGENT_PID | wc -l` = 1 ]; then
rm ~/.ssh/env
unset SSH_AUTH_SOCK
fi
fi
fi
if [ -z $SSH_AUTH_SOCK ]; then
ssh-agent -s | sed 's/^echo/#echo/'> ~/.ssh/env
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/env
source ~/.ssh/env > /dev/null 2>&1
fi
Using Git Bash on Windows 8.1 E, my resolution was as follows:
eval $(ssh-agent) > /dev/null
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
I resolved the error by force stopping (killed) git processes (ssh agent), then uninstalling Git, and then installing Git again.
This worked for me.
In the CMD window, type the following command:
cd path-to-Git/bin # (for example,cd C:\Program Files\Git\bin)
bash
exec ssh-agent bash
ssh-add path/to/.ssh/id_rsa
I'm trying to automate some things on remote Linux machines with bash scripting on Linux machine and have a working command (the braces are a relict from cmd concatenations):
(ssh -i /path/to/private_key user#remoteHost 'sh -c "echo 1; echo 2; echo 3; uname -a"')
But if an ampersand is concatenated to execute it in background, it seems to execute, but no output is printed, neither on stdout, nor on stderr, and even a redirection to a file (inside the braces) does not work...:
(ssh -i /path/to/private_key user#remoteHost 'sh -c "echo 1; echo 2; echo 3; uname -a"') &
By the way, I'm running the ssh client dropbear v0.52 in BusyBox v1.17.4 on Linux 2.4.37.10 (TomatoUSB build on a WRT54G).
Is there a way to get the output either? What's the reason for this behaviour?
EDIT:
For convenience, here's the plain ssh help output (on my TomatoUSB):
Dropbear client v0.52
Usage: ssh [options] [user#]host[/port][,[user#]host/port],...] [command]
Options are:
-p <remoteport>
-l <username>
-t Allocate a pty
-T Don't allocate a pty
-N Don't run a remote command
-f Run in background after auth
-y Always accept remote host key if unknown
-s Request a subsystem (use for sftp)
-i <identityfile> (multiple allowed)
-L <listenport:remotehost:remoteport> Local port forwarding
-g Allow remote hosts to connect to forwarded ports
-R <listenport:remotehost:remoteport> Remote port forwarding
-W <receive_window_buffer> (default 12288, larger may be faster, max 1MB)
-K <keepalive> (0 is never, default 0)
-I <idle_timeout> (0 is never, default 0)
-B <endhost:endport> Netcat-alike forwarding
-J <proxy_program> Use program pipe rather than TCP connection
Amendment after 1 day:
The braces do not hurt, with and without its the same result. I wanted to put the ssh authentication to background, so the -f option is not a solution. Interesting side note: if an unexpected option is specified (like -v), the error message WARNING: Ignoring unknown argument '-v' is displayed - even when put in background, so getting output from background processes generally works in my environment.
I tried on x86 Ubuntu regular ssh client: it works. I also tried dbclient on x86 Ubuntu: works, too. So this problem seems to be specific to the TomatoUSB build - or inside the "dropbear v0.52" was an unknown fix between the build in TomatoUSB and the one Ubuntu provides (difference in help output is just the double-sized default receive window buffer on Ubuntu)... how can a process know if it was put in background? Is there a solution to the problem?
I had the similar problem on my OpenWRT router. Dropbear SSH client does not write anything to output if there is no stdin, e.g. when run by cron. I presume that & has the same effect on process stdin (no input).
I found some workaround on author's bugtracker. Try to redirect input from /dev/zero.
Like:
ssh -i yourkey user#remotehost "echo 123" </dev/zero &
It worked for me as I tried to describe at my blog page.
I'm trying to login to a ssh server and to execute something like:
ssh user#domain.com 'sudo echo "foobar"'
Unfortunately I'm getting an error:
sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified
Google told me to either set the environment variable SSH_ASKPASS or to set askpass in the sudoers file. My remote machine is running on Debian 6 and I've installed the packages ssh-askpass and ssh-askpass-gnome and my sudoers file looks like this:
Defaults env_reset
Defaults askpass=/usr/bin/ssh-askpass
# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
user ALL=(ALL) ALL
Can someone tell what I'm doing wrong and how to do it better.
There are two ways to get rid of this error message. The easy way is to provide a pseudo terminal for the remote sudo process. You can do this with the option -t:
ssh -t user#domain.com 'sudo echo "foobar"'
Rather than allocating a TTY, or setting a password that can be seen in the command line, do something like this.
Create a shell file that echo's out your password like:
#!/bin/bash
echo "mypassword"
then copy that to the node you want using scp like this:
scp SudoPass.sh somesystem:~/bin
Then when you ssh do the following:
ssh somesystem "export SUDO_ASKPASS=~/bin/SudoPass.sh;sudo -A command -parameter"
Another way is to run sudo -S in order to "Write the prompt to the standard error and read the password from the standard input instead of using the terminal device" (according to man) together with cat:
cat | ssh user#domain.com 'sudo -S echo "foobar"'
Just input the password when being prompted to.
One advantage is that you can redirect the output of the remote command to a file without "[sudo] password for …" in it:
cat | ssh user#domain.com 'sudo -S tar c --one-file-system /' > backup.tar
Defaults askpass=/usr/bin/ssh-askpass
ssh-askpass requires X server, so instead of providing a terminal (via -t, as suggested by nosid), you may forward X connection via -X:
ssh -X user#domain.com 'sudo echo "foobar"'
However, according to current documentation, askpass is set in sudo.conf as Path, not in sudoers.
How about adding this in the sudoers file:
user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
I need to do rsync by ssh and want to do it automatically without the need of passing password for ssh manually.
Use "sshpass" non-interactive ssh password provider utility
On Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install sshpass
Command to rsync
/usr/bin/rsync -ratlz --rsh="/usr/bin/sshpass -p password ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -l username" src_path dest_path
You should use a keyfile without passphrase for scripted ssh logins. This is obviously a security risk, take care that the keyfile itself is adequately secured.
Instructions for setting up passwordless ssh access
You can avoid the password prompt on rsync command by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to the password you want to use or using the --password-file option.
I got it to work like this:
sshpass -p "password" rsync -ae "ssh -p remote_port_ssh" /local_dir remote_user#remote_host:/remote_dir
If you can't use a public/private keys, you can use expect:
#!/usr/bin/expect
spawn rsync SRC DEST
expect "password:"
send "PASS\n"
expect eof
if [catch wait] {
puts "rsync failed"
exit 1
}
exit 0
You will need to replace SRC and DEST with your normal rsync source and destination parameters, and replace PASS with your password. Just make sure this file is stored securely!
The following works for me:
SSHPASS='myPassword'
/usr/bin/rsync -a -r -p -o -g --progress --modify-window=1 --exclude /folderOne -s -u --rsh="/usr/bin/sshpass -p $SSHPASS ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -l root" source-path myDomain:dest-path >&2
I had to install sshpass
Use a ssh key.
Look at ssh-keygen and ssh-copy-id.
After that you can use an rsync this way :
rsync -a --stats --progress --delete /home/path server:path
Another interesting possibility:
generate RSA, or DSA key pair (as it was described)
put public key to host (as it was already described)
run:
rsync --partial --progress --rsh="ssh -i dsa_private_file" host_name#host:/home/me/d .
Note: -i dsa_private_file which is your RSA/DSA private key
Basically, this approach is very similar to the one described by #Mad Scientist, however you do not have to copy your private key to ~/.ssh. In other words, it is useful for ad-hoc tasks (one time passwordless access)
Automatically entering the password for the rsync command is difficult. My simple solution to avoid the problem is to mount the folder to be backed up. Then use a local rsync command to backup the mounted folder.
mount -t cifs //server/source/ /mnt/source-tmp -o username=Username,password=password
rsync -a /mnt/source-tmp /media/destination/
umount /mnt/source-tmp
The official solution (and others) were incomplete when I first visited, so I came back, years later, to post this alternate approach in case any others wound up here intending to use a public/private key-pair:
Execute this from the target backup machine, which pulls from source to target backup
rsync -av --delete -e 'ssh -p 59333 -i /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa' user#10.9.9.3:/home/user/Server/ /home/keith/Server/
Execute this from the source machine, which sends from source to target backup
rsync -av --delete -e 'ssh -p 59333 -i /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa' /home/user/Server/ user#10.9.9.3:/home/user/Server/
And, if you are not using an alternate port for ssh, then consider the more elegant examples below:
Execute this from the target backup machine, which pulls from source to target backup:
sudo rsync -avi --delete user#10.9.9.3:/var/www/ /media/sdb1/backups/www/
Execute this from the source machine, which sends from source to target backup:
sudo rsync -avi --delete /media/sdb1/backups/www/ user#10.9.9.3:/var/www/
If you are still getting prompted for a password, then you need to check your ssh configuration in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and verify that the users in source and target each have the others' respective public ssh key by sending each over with ssh-copy-id user#10.9.9.3.
(Again, this is for using ssh key-pairs without a password, as an alternate approach, and not for passing the password over via a file.)
Though you've already implemented it by now,
you can also use any expect implementation (you'll find alternatives in Perl, Python: pexpect, paramiko, etc..)
I use a VBScript file for doing this on Windows platform, it servers me very well.
set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
shell.run"rsync -a Name#192.168.1.100:/Users/Name/Projects/test ."
WScript.Sleep 100
shell.SendKeys"Your_Password"
shell.SendKeys "{ENTER}"
Exposing a password in a command is not safe, especially when using a bash script, if you tried to work with keyfiles thats will be nice.
create keys in your host with ssh-keygen and copy the public key with ssh-copy-id "user#hostname.example.com and then use rsync addin the option -e "ssh -i $HOME/.ssh/(your private key)" to force rsync using ssh connection via the the private key that you create earlier.
example :
rsync -avh --exclude '$LOGS' -e "ssh -i $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa" --ignore-existing $BACKUP_DIR $DESTINATION_HOST:$DESTINATION_DIR;
Here's a secure solution using a gpg encrypted password.
1.Create a .secret file containing your password in the same folder as your rsync script using the command:
echo 'my-very-secure-password' > .secret
Note that the file is hidden by default for extra security.
2.Encrypt your password file using the following gpg command and follow the prompts:
gpg -c .secret
This will create another file named .secret.gpg. Your password is now encrypted.
3.Delete the plain text password file
rm .secret
4.Finally in your rsync script use gpg and sshpass as follows:
gpg -dq secret.gpg | sshpass rsync -avl --mkpath /home/john user_name#x.x.x.x/home
The example is syncing the entire home folder for the user named john to a remote server with IP x.x.x.x
Following the idea posted by Andrew Seaford, this is done using sshfs:
echo "SuperHardToGuessPass:P" | sshfs -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no user#example.com:/mypath/ /mnt/source-tmp/ -o workaround=rename -o password_stdin
rsync -a /mnt/source-tmp/ /media/destination/
umount /mnt/source-tmp