I commute from home to customers, and have a large set of remote servers I need to connect to using ssh. The normal way of starting Terminal.app, and typing “ssh user@host.sub.sub.domain.com” is OK, but when you have to do it 80 times a day, you quickly look for an efficient way of packing it in less keystrokes.
[For those not knowing Quicksilver, get it from here and then read that. Warning : the current Google code version (alpha 3) is buggy, it needs the plugins from the previous alpha 2. Search the google forum, a new fixed release should be released soon.]
In its default configuration (with the appropriate Terminal plugin), Quicksilver allows to do it this way :
- invoke Quicksilver (usually CTRL-SPACE)
- enter text mode (dot)
- type “ssh user@host.sub.sub.domain.com”
- TAB
- Run a Text Command in Terminal
- RETURN
I don’t think it’s really shorter… now here is a nicer way :
On his blog, Florian Beer mention how to create ssh shortcuts, and place them in a location indexed by Spotlight or Launchbar. Here is how to do it with Quicksilver :
- create a location for your shortcuts (I used ~/Data/Connections/)
- create your shortcuts (see below)
- in Quicksilver, create a new Source in Custom Catalog to scan your shortcut location
Usage :
- invoke Quicksilver
- type your shortcut until it is selected
- RETURN
You can as well find your shortcut location in Quicksilver, you then get a menu of your shortcuts.
Creating shortcuts
Shortcuts are small XML files, and can be created with this script :
- download
- save to your favorite script location
- edit and set $shortcut_base if desired
- chmod 0755 make_new_connection.pl
- then use it once for each shortcut, pass 2 parameters (user and host)
make_new_connection.pl user host
It will create the shortcut in the correct location. Don’t forget to rescan the source in the Quicksilver catalog. After a while, the most used shortcuts will be reached quickly, due to the dynamic indexing of Quicksilver.
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