SSH assets python library

This little utility allows configuring SSH keys to be loaded automatically to the SSH agent based on asset configuration files, and can detect loaded keys based on the key hash to avoid reloading existing keys.

This library can:

• load SSH key details from various key formats to get key hashes, comments and other key details
• detect keys loaded to the SSH agent by key hash instead of filename
• define known SSH keys from multiple locations (project specific folders, shared team folders) with options to name and autoload the key with the module
• load and unload keys to the agent based on custom configuration file, without asking key password if the key was already loaded

Installing

This tool can be installed from PyPI.

pip install ssh-assets

Using the CLI tool

This package installs command line utility ssh-assets. The tool currently has only one command load-keys that can be used to load the keys configured in the assets configuration file as shown below.

Following command loads any keys not yet loaded to the agent, but limits this to the keys with autoload property set to true:

ssh-assets keys load
ssh-assets keys load --group personal
ssh-assets keys edit personal --no-autoload
ssh-assets keys edit personal --autoload
ssh-assets keys add demo --path ~/.ssh/id_rsa.demo --autoload --expire=8h
ssh-assets keys delete demo

SSH assets configuration file

This module uses configuration file ~/.ssh/assets.yml to define paths to the SSH keys.

Example configuration file:

---
groups:
  - name: personal
    expire: 5d
    keys:
      - personal
      - missing-demo-key
  - name: work
    expire: 1d
    keys:
      - aws
      - master
      - myproject
keys:
  - name: personal
    path: ~/.ssh/id_rsa
    autoload: true
  - name: aws
    path: ~/.ssh/id_rsa-aws
  - name: myproject
    path: ~/Work/Keys/ssh_project_id
    autoload: true
  - name: master
    expire: 1d
    path: ~/Work/Keys/master_ssh_key

• autoload defaults to False in configuration if not specified.
• expore defines a valid value for key expiration in SSH agent, for example 8h or 5d

Example python code

With such configuration file, you can load the keys marked as autoload to the SSH agent with following example code. Calling the load method again does not try loading the keys again (key is detected in agent loaded keys by hash).

from ssh_assets.session import SshAssetSession
SshAssetSession().load_pending_keys()

History

This module replaces previous module systematic-ssh-config when ready.