Installation

Installation

Quick install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CtrlUserKnown/ssm/main/install.sh | sh

The installer is a portable POSIX sh script that:

1. Detects your OS and CPU architecture (x86_64 / aarch64).
2. Downloads the matching prebuilt binary from the latest GitHub Release.
3. Verifies the download with a SHA-256 checksum.
4. Installs ssm to ~/.local/bin (or a custom PREFIX).

Options

PREFIX=/usr/local/bin sh install.sh

Variable	Purpose
PREFIX	Install directory (default ~/.local/bin)

Building from source

You need a Rust toolchain.

git clone https://github.com/CtrlUserKnown/ssm
cd ssm
cargo build --release          # binary at target/release/ssm

Then add it to your PATH:

cp target/release/ssm ~/.local/bin/ssm
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"      # add to your shell rc

macOS-specific notes

ssm uses the native apple-native keychain backend on macOS (no Homebrew packages needed). It can't be cross-compiled from Linux because the keychain backend links Security.framework. See BUILD_MACOS.md for the full native build, universal-binary (arm64 + x86_64), and code-signing steps.

Requirements

Linux

• A Secret Service daemon (e.g. gnome-keyring or kwallet) for password storage.
• OpenSSH 8.4+ (for the stored-password hand-off via SSH_ASKPASS).
• Optional: herdr for the herdr connection mode.
• Optional: fprintd (fprintd-verify) for biometric unlock.
• Optional: xclip or xsel for clipboard yank support.

macOS

• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install) for the Apple linker and Security.framework.
• No Homebrew packages needed — the native apple-native (Keychain) backend is used instead of the Linux Secret Service one.
• macOS's bundled OpenSSH (9.x on recent releases) is already new enough.

Uninstall

Remove the binary and configuration:

rm ~/.local/bin/ssm
rm -rf ~/.config/ssm