Bash Script to SSH into a machine without prompting password and without using keys

Question

I realize this question has been asked a few times but I could not find a relevant answer anywhere in my searching.

I am working in a development environment where s

Answer 1

You can do this with the expect tool: http://expect.sourceforge.net/

It's widely available, so depending on your system, the equivalent of sudo apt-get install expect or yum install expect will install it.

Here's an example of an expect script with ssh. This logs you in and gives you control of the interactive prompt:

#!/usr/bin/expect

set login "root"
set addr "127.0.0.1"
set pw "password"

spawn ssh $login@$addr
expect "$login@$addr\'s password:"
send "$pw\r"
expect "#"
send "cd /developer\r"
interact

Here's an example of how to use expect as part of a bash script. This logs in with ssh, cd to /var, runs a script, then exits the ssh session.

#!/bin/bash
...

login_via_ssh_and_do_stuff() {

    # build the expect script in bash

    expect_sh=$(expect -c "
    spawn ssh root@127.0.0.1
    expect \"password:\"
    send \"password\r\"
    expect \"#\"
    send \"cd /var\r\"
    expect \"#\"
    send \"chmod +x my_script.sh\r\"
    expect \"#\"
    send \"./my_script.sh\r\"
    expect \"#\"
    send \"exit\r\"
    ")

    # run the expect script
    echo "$expect_sh"
}

You can leave these snippets in a script on your local system, and then just alias to the scripts.

Also: I know you said security isn't an issue, but I'd like to just note, again, that the "proper" way to ssh without using a password is to use a ssh key-pair =)

Answer 2

Use sshpass which is available in package repositories on major Linux-es.

For example, when password is in password.txt file:

sshpass -fpassword.txt ssh username@hostname

sshpass runs ssh in a dedicated tty, fooling it into thinking it is getting the password from an interactive user.