Shortcuts for SSH hosts
Are you tired of typing full length host-names while connecting via SSH? Do you frequently scp files from one server to another and have to lookup what the host-names are? Do you want to rsync between local and remote host easily with a simple command? Then, read-on.
The hard-way:
# connect
ssh username@login.scinet.science
# scp
scp yourfile usename@login.scinet.science:/path/to/destination/
# rsync
rsync -e 'ssh -c aes128-ctr' -rts your_folder username@login.scinet.science:/path/to/destination/
As you can see, if you have a bunch of hosts, it gets really hairy to retype them every time you want to do any of these things.
The Solution
Create a config file under the ~/.ssh directory, with the short name for these host-names. Then you can simply connect to the server by using the short name instead of the full host-name!
First, edit the file
vi ~/.ssh/config
and add the details:
Host ceres
Hostname login.scinet.science
User username
ForwardX11 yes
ServerAliveInterval 300
Host condo
Hostname condo2017.its.iastate.edu
User username
ForwardX11 yes
Set permissions straight:
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config
Now, have fun! the above commands can now be done using:
# connect
ssh ceres
# scp
scp yourfile ceres:/path/to/destination/
# rsync
rsync -e 'ssh -c aes128-ctr' -rts your_folder ceres:/path/to/destination/
You can read more about the config by opening the man page:
man ssh-config
Now, combine this with password-less login and work smart!