mobile-shell / mobile-shell/mosh

Having a .moshrc (equivalent to .ssh/config) file to be able to specify per-host configs

Open
#431 31 comments 47 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

feature
Dominant language
C++
Stars
14.5k
Forks
865
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Hi,

I think this would go a long way improving the usability of mosh to be able to have a .ssh/config equivalent.

Unfortunately, ssh complains about unknown directives in .ssh/config so we will need a new file (I also think it's good practice to do so anyway).

The format could be simple (.ssh/config sounds a pretty good example: easy to write, easy to parse).

Useful configs to include: hostname, port, mosh-server, eventually ssh and command (in some weird case). Later: enable/disable OOB data (#423) on a per-host basis.
Some of the configs such as hostname, agent forwarding, X11 forwarding, etc... could actually be extracted from .ssh/config directly.

I think it's much better than aliases because it's seamless and consistent. Plus the fact that mosh already seamlessly use .ssh/config makes it quite irritating to be able to use aliases only for specifying a couple of argument for a given host. If many hosts requires a custom config multiplication of aliases could also clutter the shell. Plus we always have to remember which hosts works out-of-the-box and which needs an alias. All this disappears with a .mosh/config config file.

Security-wise, since it's already done by ssh (and actually allows a much bigger control on the connection since it could change the Hostname we are connecting to, define a ProxyCommand, etc...), If the file is secure, I don't see a very big security issue here.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing how mosh currently uses .ssh/config and how connection options are passed for a host. The issue lists hostname, port, mosh-server, ssh, command, and later OOB settings, so the scope and configuration format need to be resolved before implementation; done means an agreed per-host .moshrc behavior is implemented and verified.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli, networking
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.