Secure SHell for Alfred

Open SSH/SFTP/mosh connections from Alfred 3 with autosuggestions based on SSH config files, /etc/hosts and your history.

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration
  • Sources
  • Advanced configuration
    • URLs
    • Commands
    • Using iTerm2
• Licensing & thanks
• Changelog

Features

• Auto-suggest hostnames
• Remembers usernames, so you don't have to type them in every time
• Alternate actions:
  • Open connection with mosh
  • Open SFTP connection
  • Ping host
• Sources (can be managed individually):
  • ~/.ssh/config
  • ~/.ssh/known_hosts
  • History (i.e. username + host addresses previously entered by the user)
  • /etc/hosts
  • /etc/ssh/ssh_config

Installation

Download the latest release and double-click the file to install in Alfred.

Usage

The main keyword is ssh:

• ssh [<query>] — View and filter known SSH connections.

  • ↩ or ⌘+<NUM> — Open the connection.
  • ⇥ — Expand query to selected connection's title. Useful for adding a port number.
  • ⌘+↩ — Open an SFTP connection instead.
  • ⌥+↩ — Open a mosh connection instead.
  • ⇧+↩ — Ping host.
  • ^+↩ — Forget connection (if it's from history).

Configuration is managed with sshconf:

• sshconf [<query>] — Edit workflow settings (see Configuration)
  • An Update is Available! or Workflow is Up to Date — Action to check for an update and install if one is available.
  • Source: XYZ — Toggle source on/off
  • Log File — Open workflow's log file in the default app (usually Console.app)
  • Documentation / Report Issue / Visit Forum — Open this file, the workflow's issue tracker or forum thread in your browser.

Configuration

Sources can be configured from within the workflow using the sshconf keyword. Other settings are managed via the workflow's configuration sheet.

Sources

The following sources are available and can be toggled on/off using sshconf:

Name	Source
SSH Config	~/.ssh/config
SSH Config (system)	/etc/ssh/ssh_config
/etc/hosts	/etc/hosts
History	User-entered hostnames
Known Hosts	~/.ssh/known_hosts

Advanced configuration

There are several additional settings that can only be edited via the workflow's configuration sheet, which allow you to specify a few commands and applications.

To understand these, it's necessary to understand a bit about how the workflow works.

The workflow opens connections either via a URL (sftp://... and ssh://... by default) or via a shell command (ping and mosh by default). URLs are passed off to the system, which opens them in the default application. Shell commands are handled by Alfred's Terminal Command Action, which effectively creates a new tab in your default terminal and pastes the command in there.

URLs

If you'd like sftp://... or ssh://... URLs to be passed to a specific application, specify its name for SFTP_APP or SSH_APP respectively, e.g. Transmit or ForkLift for SFTP, or Terminal for SSH.

Commands

The handling of shell commands is configured in Alfred's own preferences (see Using iTerm2 for more information).

There are two commands you can configure in the workflow, MOSH_CMD and SSH_CMD.

MOSH_CMD sets the command that is pasted in your terminal when the command is run. Normally, the default of mosh should be sufficient, but set to a full path if the command can't be found.

Set MOSH_CMD to empty to disable mosh.

SSH_CMD allows you to override the default behaviour of generating and opening an ssh://... URL. If SSH_CMD is non-empty, a shell command is generated and run in your terminal instead. SSH_CMD is the name or path of the ssh command.

Compared to the default ssh://... URL method, this has the advantage of running the command in your own shell, so your local configuration files should be loaded before the SSH connection is made. It has the downside of being slower and less well-tested than the default URL method.

Using iTerm2

If you'd prefer to use iTerm2 rather than Terminal.app, there are two steps:

1. To have shell commands open in iTerm2, install @stuartcryan's iTerm2 plugin for Alfred.
2. To open ssh://... URLs in iTerm2, Set iTerm2 as the default handler for ssh: URLs in iTerm2's own preferences under Profiles > PROFILE_NAME > General > URL Schemes:

Licensing & thanks

This workflow is released under the MIT Licence.

It uses the following libraries (all MIT Licence):

• ssh_config to parse SSH config files.
• AwGo for the workflowy stuff.

And icons from or based on the following fonts (all SIL Licence):

• Material Design Community
• FontAwesome

This workflow started as a port of @isometry's Python SSH workflow to Go as a testbed for AwGo. It has since gained some additional features.

If you need Alfred 2 support, check out @isometry's workflow.

Changelog

• v0.9.0

• v0.8.0 — 2018-03-17
  • Add option to use ssh command instead of URL. Enables loading of local shell configuration before opening connection. #8
  • Add in-workflow configuration of sources
  • Add links to docs, issue tracker and forum thread
• v0.7.1 — 2016-12-12
  • Fix updater bug
  • Smarter SSH URLs for hosts from ~/.ssh/config
  • Better removal of duplicates
• v0.6.0 — 2016-11-09
  • Add in-workflow updates
• v0.5.0 — 2016-10-31
  • Add support for SSH configuration files (~/.ssh/config and /etc/ssh/ssh_config)
  • Alternate action: open connection with mosh
• v0.4.0 — 2016-05-27
  • Add ability to turn sources of suggestions off #1
• v0.3.0 — 2016-05-26
  • Alternate action: Open SFTP connection
  • Alternate action: Ping host
  • Remember connections with usernames, so you don't have to type the username each time
• v0.2.0 — 2016-05-23
  • First public release