conn — SSH Connection Manager

A lightweight, zero-dependency Bash tool to manage SSH connections with aliases.

Stop memorizing hosts, usernames and ports.
Store every server under a short alias and connect with a single command.

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Overview

conn is a single-file Bash script that wraps ssh with a human-friendly interface. It stores your server definitions in ~/.ssh_connections.conf and exposes a clean CLI to add, list, edit, connect to, and remove them — plus SSH key management, ProxyJump/IdentityFile, shell completion, and auto-update.

conn to production                              # SSH into "production" in one shot
conn list                                       # Pretty-printed table of all servers
conn add                                        # Interactive wizard
conn add prod deploy@host:22 --folder /var/www  # One-shot add
conn update                                     # Pull the latest version from GitHub

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Installation

Quick install (one-liner)

curl -fsSL https://conn.web.ap.it/setup.sh | bash

Downloads and installs conn to /usr/local/bin

Shell completion (optional)

# bash
conn completion bash

# zsh
conn completion zsh

The command adds an idempotent loader to the shell configuration file. Open a new terminal or run the source command it prints. Use conn completion zsh --print (or bash --print) only when you need the raw completion script.

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Commands

Command	Description
conn add	Interactive wizard to save a new connection
conn add <alias> <user@host[:port]> [options]	One-shot add (--folder, --identity, --jump, --password)
conn list	Print all connections in a formatted table
conn info <alias>	Show details for a connection (password never printed)
conn to <alias>	Open an SSH session by alias
conn edit <alias>	Modify an existing connection
conn remove <alias>	Delete a connection (with confirmation)
conn reset <alias>	Remove stale host keys (ssh-keygen -R)
conn key <action>	Manage SSH keys — public, private, create [--rsa]
conn update	Self-update from GitHub
conn completion [bash|zsh]	Install idempotent shell completion
conn help	Print usage reference

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Usage

Adding a connection

Interactive:

conn add

Type alias: production
Type user (default: root): deploy
Type host: prod.example.com
Type port (default: 22): 22
Password (optional — stored in secret store, copied to clipboard on connect):
Type remote folder (optional): /var/www/myapp
Identity file (optional, e.g. ~/.ssh/id_ed25519):
ProxyJump host (optional): bastion

One-shot:

conn add production deploy@prod.example.com:22 \
  --folder /var/www/myapp \
  --identity ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 \
  --jump bastion

Listing servers

conn list

Notes column:

• 🔑 saved password (in OS secret store)
• 📂 remote folder
• 🔐 custom identity file
• ↪ ProxyJump

Connecting

conn to production

Before opening the SSH session, conn will:

1. Verify that an SSH key pair exists (id_ed25519, id_ecdsa, or id_rsa)
2. Check for available script updates at most once every 24 hours
3. Copy the saved password to the clipboard (if one is stored)
4. Hand off to ssh with optional -i / -J, and auto-cd into the remote folder

Managing SSH keys

conn key public         # Print your public key
conn key create         # Generate a new ed25519 key pair (passphrase prompted)
conn key create --rsa   # Generate a 4096-bit RSA key pair instead
conn key private        # Print your private key (requires typing YES)

Resetting a host key

Useful when you get a "WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED" error:

conn reset myserver

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Configuration

Connections are persisted in:

~/.ssh_connections.conf

Format (7 fields):

alias|user|host|port|folder|identity|proxyjump

Passwords are not stored in this file. They go to, in order of preference:

1. macOS Keychain (security)
2. libsecret (secret-tool)
3. pass (password-store)
4. Fallback file ~/.ssh_connections.secrets (chmod 600)

Platform support

• macOS: native support for Keychain and pbcopy.
• Linux: native support for secret-tool / pass and xclip, xsel, or wl-copy.
• Windows: not supported natively. conn may run in WSL or Git Bash, but it does not currently integrate with Windows Credential Manager or clip.exe; the fallback secret file should therefore be treated with extra care.

Existing configs in the old alias|user|host|port|password|folder format are migrated automatically on first run — passwords are moved into the secret store and removed from the connections file.

Fields must not contain |.

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Requirements

• macOS or any Unix-like system
• Bash 3.2+ (macOS system Bash is fine)
• OpenSSH client
• Clipboard support — pbcopy on macOS; xclip, xsel, or wl-copy on Linux
• Windows is supported only through WSL or Git Bash, with the limitations above

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Uninstallation

Remove the binary:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/conn

Remove saved connections and secrets:

rm -f ~/.ssh_connections.conf ~/.ssh_connections.secrets
# macOS Keychain entries use service "conn.web.ap.it" — delete from Keychain Access if needed

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Take it to production

Once you've connected to your servers with conn, deploy your Laravel apps with cipi.sh — an open-source CLI built exclusively for Laravel. One command installs a complete production stack on any Ubuntu VPS: PHP-FPM, MariaDB, Nginx, Let's Encrypt SSL, zero-downtime deploys.

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Links

• Website: conn.web.ap.it
• Repository: github.com/andreapollastri/conn

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Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For significant changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

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License

MIT — free to use, modify and distribute.

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Made with care by Andrea Pollastri