Last years, with modern IaC tools, ssh
command and protocol feel less important. More tasks are done by crafting disposable software stacks in docker images, and by setting centralised observability solutions. And ssh acts as a «last resort» manual tool.
But software is still running on the servers, and we need access to those servers sometimes. Additionally, physical resource configuration still needs to be managed, and ssh
is a standard way to do this.
Using ssh
is easy. Public key authentication imposes some additional learning. After you'll get used to it, ssh
becomes some transparent routine.
ssh
allows you to customise configuration with a set of Host
and Match
rules in the config file. When the host alias matches one of those rules, the following configuration options apply to the connection. Some ssh configuration options can be used with percent interpolated variables, such as %h
for user-requested host alias.