sshmaster

This completely replaces what I was trying to do almost a decade ago.

Back then, I was mostly trying to use tmux as a TUI, but that doesn't fit my workflow now.

This does. I use xterm for terminals with ssh, but often have multiple windows open. This will color them and change the icon on the taskbar, etc. It's nothing fancy, but it's better than what was here, so if you find it, you're at least looking at something useful.

sshm.sh is a thin wrapper around ssh.

It accepts normal ssh arguments, checks the destination host against sshm.config, and when there is a match it launches the session inside an xterm with a configured icon and colors. When there is no match, it runs plain ssh.

Requirements

• bash
• ssh
• xterm
• xseticon for window icon decoration

Usage

./sshm.sh [ssh arguments...]
./sshm.sh --help

Examples:

./sshm.sh dibbler
./sshm.sh user@dibbler
./sshm.sh -p 2222 user@example.com
./sshm.sh -J jumpbox internal-host

Behavior

• sshm.sh accepts the same argument forms that ssh does.
• The first non-option destination is used to determine whether the host is in sshm.config.
• A config block matches when that destination equals either a Host or HostName value in the block.
• If the matched host appears in a config block, sshm.sh launches xterm and runs ssh inside it with the original argument list unchanged.
• If the host is not in sshm.config, sshm.sh executes plain ssh.
• Matching xterm sessions are launched with TERM=xterm-256color.

Config Format

The default config file is sshm.config in the script directory. Blocks are separated by comment lines beginning with #.

Supported keys:

• Host: host alias or hostname to match. You can repeat this key within a block.
• HostName: alternate hostname or address to match.
• Icon: icon filename stem, icon filename, or absolute path.
• BGColor: xterm color name, #RRGGBB, or a 0-255 xterm palette index.
• FGColor: xterm color name, #RRGGBB, or a 0-255 xterm palette index.

Example:

########################################################################
Host dibbler
Host 192.168.1.101
Host stevesaus.me
Icon dibbler
BGColor 52
FGColor White
########################################################################

Icons

By default, icons are loaded from share/icons in the script directory.

Icon resolution order:

1. exact path from Icon
2. $SSHM_ICON_DIR/<Icon>
3. $SSHM_ICON_DIR/<Icon>.png

If an Icon value is configured but no file is found, sshm.sh prints a warning to stderr and still launches the xterm.

Environment Overrides

• SSHM_CONFIG: override the config file path
• SSHM_ICON_DIR: override the icon directory

Notes

• Numeric BGColor and FGColor values are interpreted as xterm 256-color palette indexes and converted to RGB before being passed to xterm.
• Named colors are passed through directly to xterm.
• Whether remote applications use 256 colors still depends on the remote host's terminfo and application behavior.