Awssh

Hacky way to handle ssh to AWS servers

Searches for servers based on AWS tag Name.
Provides the ability to use single ssh and multiple ssh access.
Use cssh or csshX (configurable) for mulit-server access
caches list of servers, to minimize calls to AWS (primarily for speed).

Installation

Generally, you will install this directly:

$ gem install awssh

Initialize the config file:

$ awssh -i

Edit the config file and add the AWS region, key, and secret.

...
region: us-east-1              # AWS region
key: AWS ACCESS KEY ID         # AWS key
secret: AWS SECRET ACCESS KEY  # AWS secret
...

Requirement

Use Names = False

With use_names: false in the config, the tool will use the private address of the server, expecting that the servers are in a vpc and that you are able to connect to them directly (with VPN).

Use Names = True

If use_names: true, then the only requirement of the tool is that the Name tag on the instance maps to the DNS record. Generally, awssh expects that if the name of the instance is foo.bar, then it can connect to the server by appending the domain name as foo.bar.example.com.

If you unset the domain name in the config, it will not append it. As such, if your Name tag maps directly to the FQDN, it will work as well.

In the future, I might add a templated way for handling hostnames, to allow for more customization in DNS lookup.

Usage

Usage: awssh [options] [search terms]

Search Terms:
  matches against AWS Tag "Name"
  positive check for each entry
    name =~ /term/
  negative check if the term starts with ^
    name !~ /term/

Options:
    -c, --config                     override config file (default: ~/.awssh)
    -V, --version                    print version
    -i, --identity=IDENTITY          set ssh key
        --init                       initialize config

    -l, --list                       just list servers
    -n, --test                       just output ssh command
    -v, --[no-]verbose               Run verbosely

    -U, --update                     just update the cache
        --no-cache                   disable cache for this run

    -m, --[no-]multi                 connect to multiple servers
    -u, --user USER                  override user setting

Examples

Given a list of servers:

web1.staging
app1.staging
web1.production
web2.production
app1.production
app2.production
app3.production

Connect to web1.staging

awssh web1 staging #=> web1.staging

Connect to all staging servers

awssh -m staging #=> web1.staging, app1.staging

Connect to all production servers, except app3. The hat ^ negates a match.

awssh -m production ^app3 #=> web1.production, web2.production, app1.production, app2.production

Config

---
region: us-east-1               # AWS Region
key: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID          # AWS access key id
secret: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY   # AWS secret access key
multi: csshX                    # command to use when connecting to multiple servers
single: ssh                     # command to use when connecting to single server
#user: username                 # set user for connection to all servers
                                # this can be overridden on the command line
domain: example.com             # if 'use_names' is set, this will be appended
                                # to names, leave blank if name is fully-qualified
use_names: false                # if true, rather than connecting to IP's,
                                # connection strings will be created using Name
                                # tag and domain
cache: ~/.awssh.cache           # the cache file, set to false to disable caching
expires: 86400                  # cache expiration time in seconds

Multi SSH

csshX is available on Mac OSX through brew.

cssh is available on linux, through apt or yum.

If there are other programs like this, please let me know.

Eventually, I'd like to support the programs with templated commands, to allow for more advanced usage.

Caching

Maintains a simple cache with expiration (default: 1 day). You can disable the cache by setting the cache value to false in the config file.

Shell Alias

To get around using multiple RVM's and still have access to awssh command

alias awssh='rvm <rvm version> do awssh'

When you install awssh into your default ruby, then change to a project ruby, the awssh gem is no longer available. This allows you to use the awssh gem from ruby. Just specify the default rvm version in above.

alias awssh='rvm 2.1.2 do awssh'

Contributing

Fork it ( https://github.com/[my-github-username]/awssh/fork )
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create a new Pull Request