How to pass password automatically for rsync SSH command? - ssh

Question

I need to do rsync by ssh and want to do it automatically without the need of passing password for ssh manually.

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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!

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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)

Answer 9

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

Answer 10

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.)

Answer 11

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..)

Answer 12

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}"

Answer 13

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;

Answer 14

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

Answer 15

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