SSH Configuration

SSH Configuration

Config Include Support

neossh honours top-level Include directives in your ~/.ssh/config:

• Reads: All included files are parsed in OpenSSH precedence order.
• Globs: Wildcard patterns are expanded like OpenSSH; matches that are directories are skipped instead of aborting startup.
• Writes route back to source: Editing or deleting a host modifies the file that actually defines it. Other files are never touched.
• Ambiguity modal: If the same alias is defined in multiple files, a prompt asks which file to update. Your choice is remembered in metadata.json.

# ~/.ssh/config
Include config.d/*
Include config_work

Host personal-server
    HostName 192.168.1.10
    User me

Config Safety

Non-destructive Writes

neossh only writes the minimal required changes to your ~/.ssh/config. Comments, spacing, indentation, and untouched settings remain intact.

Atomic Writes

Updates are written to a temporary file and atomically renamed over the original to prevent corruption on crashes or power loss.

Automatic Backups

Backup Type	File	Description
One-time snapshot	config.original.backup	Created before first change. Never overwritten.
Rolling backups	~/.ssh/config-<timestamp>-neossh.backup	On each save. Keeps 10 most recent.

Advanced SSH Options

The add/edit form provides a comprehensive tabbed interface:

Connection

• Port forwarding (LocalForward, RemoteForward, DynamicForward)
• Connection multiplexing for instant subsequent connections
• Keep-alive settings

Authentication

• Public key authentication
• Password authentication (via sshpass)
• Agent forwarding
• FIDO2 / security keys

Security

• Ciphers
• MACs (message authentication codes)
• Key exchange algorithms
• Host key algorithms

Proxy

• ProxyJump — Modern multi-hop proxy
• ProxyCommand — Custom proxy commands

Portable Tilde Paths

neossh automatically normalizes absolute paths to portable relative tilde paths:

/Users/john/.ssh/id_rsa  →  ~/.ssh/id_rsa

This ensures SSH configs remain portable across machines with different usernames.

Quoted Host Alias Stripping

neossh automatically sanitizes enclosing quotes from Host lines:

Host "server"  →  Host server

Numeric Username Support

neossh supports usernames starting with a number or underscore (e.g. 007admin), fully supporting Linux service and UID-based accounts.

Custom Config Path

Load any alternative SSH config file:

neossh --sshconfig ~/.ssh/config_work

This is useful for separating personal and work configurations.