ssh-and-tmux: part three

On many of the hosts I connect to using my ssh-and-tmux script I want to be able to use git to connect to repositories via ssh. Initially this is as simple as ensuring that ssh-agent forwarding is enabled by passing -A to ssh. The problem comes when I disconnect and reconnect from somewhere else. This kills the ssh session and the socket used for the agent is removed and SSH_AUTH_SOCK ends up pointing to a file that doesn't exist.

The solution is to use a fixed name for the authentication socket and symlink that name to the real one as it changes.

#!/bin/sh
set -e

if [ -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ]; then
    echo No ssh agent found. Starting one.
    eval `ssh-agent`
fi

if [ -n "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" ]; then
    export SSH_AUTH_SOCK_OLD=$SSH_AUTH_SOCK
    export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$HOME/.ssh/.tmux-agent
    ln -sf "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK_OLD" $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
else
    echo Failed to start ssh agent

    # Set the socket anyway in case someone reattaches later with a
    # valid agent.
    export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$HOME/.ssh/.tmux-agent
fi

# Use a specific name for the tmux/screen session so
# that we can tell that it's one that uses this scheme.
# We have to detach other clients with tmux so that we
# don't end up with a stale agent in them when we
# return to them later.
if which tmux >/dev/null 2>/dev/null; then
    tmux -2 -L ssh-agent "$@" attach -d || tmux -2 -L ssh-agent "$@"
else
    exec screen -S ssh-agent "$@" -x -RR
fi

Now the original script just needs to run this script on the remote host rather than executing tmux directly.

I've been using this final solution for quite a while now and it works really well.

ssh-and-tmux: part two

Many of the hosts I wish to use my ssh-and-tmux script to connect to are behind firewalls so I can't connect to them directly. I find that it is more reliable to just ssh through a gateway host rather than using any VPN that might be available. This can easily be bolted on to the ssh-and-tmux script provided a good guess can be made as to which network you're actually on:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -n "$TMUX" ]; then
    echo Already in tmux
    exit 1
fi

if [ -n "$STY" ]; then
    echo Already in screen
    exit 1
fi

while true; do
    # First work out where we are based on our IP address.
    # We do this every time round the loop in case we've 
    # moved network since last time.
    addrs=`ip --family inet --oneline addr`

    work_via=gateway.example.com
    home_via=gateway.randombitsofuselessinformation.blogspot.com

    case "$addrs" in
 *192.168.1.*)
     # We're on the home network
     home_via=
     ;;
 *172.16.*)
     # We're on the work network
     work_via=
     ;;
    esac

    extra=
    via=
    case "$1" in
 work-host1)
     via=$work_via
     # Add a port forward for this host too
     extra=-L8080:work-host1:8080
     dest=work-host1
     ;;
 home-host1)
     via=$home_via
     dest=home-host1
     ;;
 home-host2)
     via=$home_via
     dest=home-host2
     ;;
 *.*)
     # Hosts with dots are assumed to be on the
            # Internet at large
     via=
     dest="$1"
     ;;
 *)
     # All other hosts are assumed to be on the work
            # network
     via=$work_via
     dest="$1"
     ;;
    esac
    
    if [ -n "$via" ]; then
 ssh $extra -A -t "$via" \
            ssh -t "$dest" "tmux -2 -L netbook attach \
            || tmux -2 -L netbook"
    else
 ssh $extra -t "$dest" "tmux -2 -L netbook attach \
            || tmux -2 -L netbook"
    fi
    
    stty sane
    echo "Dropped, press Enter to reconnect."
    if read x; then
 echo "Reconnecting..."
    else
 # Something bad happened to our tty. We'd better exit.
 exit 1
    fi
done

So now I can connect to work-host1 from home via the gateway, shut the laptop, travel to work, open it again, hit Enter and reconnect directly to work-host1 without losing any state. What's not to like? Well, there's still some more things we can do.

ssh-and-tmux: part one

So, I finally got round to buying myself a netbook. Unlike my old laptop the netbook has a battery that actually works so I can pick it up, use it for a few minutes and then close the lid so it suspends. Later on I can pick it up again and carry on where I left off. At least that's the theory. The problem is that quite a lot of what I do ends up involving ssh connections to remote hosts and whilst those connections survive a brief period of suspension they don't last for too long.

I've used Screen on and off for over fifteen years and I thought that this would help to solve the problem. Not long after implementing the solution I switched to tmux.

Step one is to initiate tmux over the ssh connection:

ssh -t destination "tmux -2 -L netbook attach || tmux -2 -L netbook"

The -2 forces tmux to assume that the terminal supports 256 colours. All of the ones I use seem to.

The -L netbook option gives the tmux session a unique name so it won't get mixed up with a manually launched tmux session.

First I try and attach to an existing session but if that fails I create a new one.

I put this in a script named ssh-and-tmux.

Step two is to automatically reconnect when the connection is dropped. I decided not to do this automatically because that would keep throwing off other connections from elsewhere. Leaving multiple connections active at the same time would mean that the usable window size might be limited too. Instead I simply wait for the Enter key to be pressed before trying to connect again and if anything goes wrong exit.

So, the step two script is:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -n "$TMUX" ]; then
    echo Already in tmux
    exit 1
fi

if [ -n "$STY" ]; then
    echo Already in screen
    exit 1
fi

dest="$1"
while true; do
    ssh -t "$dest" "tmux -2 -L netbook attach || tmux -2 -L netbook"

    stty sane
    echo "Dropped, press Enter to reconnect."
    if read x; then
        echo "Reconnecting..."
    else
        # Something bad happened to our tty. We'd better exit.
        exit 1
    fi
done

Sometimes it can take ssh a while to notice that the connection has been dropped. In that case I can simply type " ~ . " to kill the ssh connection and reconnect.

This works well but there's more to come in the next post.