Connect to SSH Servers
Last modified on October 4, 2023
There are three different ways to connect to SSH servers with StrongDM:
- Use the CLI
- Connect with
ssh
as an alias forsdm
- Connect directly with
ssh
using the mapped port
Use the StrongDM Binary
Directly
You can connect to any accessible server simply by using sdm ssh <servername>
. This command also attempts to complete <servername>
as long as you use a unique substring of a valid server.
$ sdm status
DATASOURCE NAME STATUS PORT TYPE
Customer DB RO not connected 5432 postgres
Document DB not connected 27017 mongo
SSH SERVER STATUS PORT TYPE
bastion01 not connected 60672 ssh
deployment04 not connected 60834 ssh
$ sdm ssh bas
Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-1026-aws x86_64)
Last login: Thu Jun 14 16:12:48 2018 from 127.0.0.1
ubuntu@bastion01:~$
sdm connect
or sdm disconnect
commands for this resource except in specific instances.Make an alias
The easiest way to use SSH with StrongDM is to add the StrongDM aliases to your shell profile.
Type
sdm ssh alias
to get the required aliases; they mapssh
andscp
to use the StrongDM binary.sdm ssh alias # Run this in the command line, or add the following to $HOME/.bashrc alias ssh="/usr/local/bin/sdm ssh wrapped-run" alias scp="scp -S'/usr/local/bin/sdm' -osdmSCP"
Run the resulting lines on the prompt and/or add them to
$HOME/.bashrc
or the equivalent for your shell.Start a new shell and test by connecting to an SSH server:
ssh <servername>
.
This does not interrupt anything you have defined via straight SSH. It first checks StrongDM, and if nothing exists, defaults to your standard path.
Use the Mapped Port
Just like connecting to databases, you can connect directly to the mapped server ports using ssh
.
Open a connection to the server by clicking on its name in the desktop app, or via the
sdm connect <SERVER_NAME>
command. For example:sdm connect server01
Note the port assigned to the server in the desktop app or listed under
sdm status
.Connect via the
ssh localhost -p <PORT>
command. For example:ssh localhost -p 14213
Windows 10/11
Windows 10 and 11 come with OpenSSH installed by default, but the executable is not where sdm
looks for it by default. In order to use sdm ssh
commands, you must copy ssh.exe
from C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh.exe
to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\ssh.exe
.