About

Imported from terminalskills/skills (skills/ssh/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add terminalskills/skills --skill ssh. Copyright stays with the author (Apache-2.0).

SSH

Name: ssh
Author: terminalskills

Overview

SSH (Secure Shell) provides encrypted remote access to servers. Beyond basic login, it handles key-based auth, port forwarding (tunnels), jump hosts (bastion), file transfer (SCP/SFTP), and agent forwarding.

Instructions

Step 1: Key Setup

# Generate ED25519 key (recommended over RSA)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your@email.com"

# Copy public key to server
ssh-copy-id user@server.example.com

# Or manually:
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | ssh user@server "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

Step 2: SSH Config

# ~/.ssh/config — Named host configurations
Host prod
    HostName 203.0.113.10
    User deploy
    Port 2222
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/deploy_key

Host staging
    HostName staging.example.com
    User deploy
    ProxyJump bastion

Host bastion
    HostName bastion.example.com
    User admin
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/bastion_key

Host dev-*
    HostName %h.internal.example.com
    User developer
    ProxyJump bastion

# Now just:
ssh prod          # connects to 203.0.113.10:2222 as deploy
ssh staging       # connects through bastion
ssh dev-api       # connects to dev-api.internal.example.com via bastion

Step 3: Tunneling

# Local forward: access remote service locally
ssh -L 5432:db.internal:5432 bastion
# Now connect to localhost:5432 to reach the internal database

# Remote forward: expose local service to remote
ssh -R 8080:localhost:3000 prod
# Remote server can now reach your local app at localhost:8080

# Dynamic SOCKS proxy
ssh -D 1080 prod
# Use as SOCKS proxy for all traffic

Step 4: Server Hardening

# /etc/ssh/sshd_config — Production SSH hardening
PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
PubkeyAuthentication yes
MaxAuthTries 3
ClientAliveInterval 300
ClientAliveCountMax 2
AllowUsers deploy admin
Port 2222

Guidelines

Always use key-based auth in production — disable password auth.
ED25519 keys are shorter and more secure than RSA.
Use ProxyJump (bastion/jump host) instead of exposing internal servers to the internet.
ssh-agent caches keys in memory — no need to enter passphrase repeatedly.

Use it

Copy one of these into your project. Installing also returns the manifest and these snippets.

yaml

targets:
  - https://api.opensmartroute.ai/api/v1/registry/terminalskills-skills-ssh/manifest   # or paste the manifest below

Manifest

An Open Capability Manifest: the router reads it to know what this does, what it costs and when to pick it.

terminalskills-skills-ssh.ocm.jsonjson

{
  "ocm": "1",
  "id": "terminalskills-skills-ssh",
  "kind": "skill",
  "name": "ssh",
  "description": "Secure server access and tunneling with SSH. Use when a user asks to connect to remote servers, set up SSH keys, create tunnels, configure jump hosts, manage SSH config, or automate remote commands.",
  "publisher": "terminalskills",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "capabilities": {
    "domains": [
      "general"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "skill-md",
      "ssh",
      "remote",
      "tunneling",
      "security",
      "servers",
      "skills-sh"
    ],
    "languages": [
      "en"
    ]
  },
  "quality_prior": 0.6,
  "examples": [
    "Secure server access and tunneling with SSH. Use when a user asks to connect to remote servers, set up SSH keys, create tunnels, configure jump hosts, manage SSH config, or automate remote commands."
  ],
  "primary": false,
  "metadata": {
    "source": {
      "provider": "skills.sh",
      "repository": "https://github.com/terminalskills/skills",
      "path": "skills/ssh/SKILL.md",
      "ref": "HEAD",
      "url": "https://github.com/terminalskills/skills/blob/HEAD/skills/ssh/SKILL.md",
      "key": "terminalskills/skills/skills/ssh/SKILL.md"
    },
    "compatibility": "Linux, macOS, Windows (OpenSSH)",
    "license": "Apache-2.0"
  },
  "instructions": "# SSH\n\n## Overview\n\nSSH (Secure Shell) provides encrypted remote access to servers. Beyond basic login, it handles key-based auth, port forwarding (tunnels), jump hosts (bastion), file transfer (SCP/SFTP), and agent forwarding.\n\n## Instructions\n\n### Step 1: Key Setup\n\n```bash\n# Generate ED25519 key (recommended over RSA)\nssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C \"your@email.com\"\n\n# Copy public key to server\nssh-copy-id user@server.example.com\n\n# Or manually:\ncat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | ssh user@server \"mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys\"\n```\n\n### Step 2: SSH Config\n\n```text\n# ~/.ssh/config — Name",
  "cost": {
    "context_tokens": 542
  }
}

Fetch it by URL: GET /api/v1/registry/terminalskills-skills-ssh/manifest?version=1.0.0

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