Comments on: Enable Tab Completion for SSH Aliases

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:11:19 +0000

hey there… i’m quite late.. but i also got in some troubles while configuring this on my macbook pro (lion)

so.. just check if your local .bashrc is even called! (try with echo “hi” or something similar)

if not, insert this in /etc/profile right after the /etc/bashrc-call:

[ -r $HOME/.bashrc ] && source $HOME/.bashrc

(or just write it in the global /etc/bashrc)

By: Lucca Mordente

Lucca Mordente — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:41:10 +0000

What error did you get?

By: ahmet alp balkan

ahmet alp balkan — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:43:40 +0000

none of the above works without errors. tried them all.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:01:36 +0000

I’d prefer to use bash but this does not work for me

By: MetalRufflez

MetalRufflez — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:15:02 +0000

You can simplify even mor the awk command:
complete -o default -o nospace -W “$(awk ‘/^Host / {print $2}’ < $HOME/.ssh/config) scp sftp ssh

By: Lucca Mordente

Lucca Mordente — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:25:45 +0000

I mean:

complete -o default -o nospace -W “$(/usr/bin/env ruby -ne ‘puts $_.split(/[,\s]+/)[1..-1].reject{|host| host.match(/\*|\?/)} if $_.match(/\s*Host\s+/);’ < $HOME/.ssh/config)" scp sftp ssh

remember to replace the quotes

By: Lucca Mordente

Lucca Mordente — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:23:23 +0000

Here is the correct command:

/usr/bin/env ruby -ne ‘puts $_.split(/[,\s]+/)[1..-1].reject{|host| host.match(/\*|\?/)} if $_.match(/\s*Host\s+/);’ < $HOME/.ssh/config

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:01:59 +0000

Awk variant (combining greps and cut into one system call), accepting multiple hostnames on the Host line in the config:

complete -o default -o nospace -W “$(awk ‘/^Host / {sub(“^Host “, “”); print $0;}’ < $HOME/.ssh/config)" scp sftp ssh

(I don't have ruby installed either).

By: lkuty

lkuty — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:43:00 +0000

Backslashes have disappeared.

Before s (3 of them), *, ? in regular expressions above we need a backslash.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:23:25 +0000

You can also set this up easily in your .bash_profile to use the values in your /etc/hosts file:

complete -A hostname ftp sftp ssh

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:10:28 +0000

sigh. that should be

complete -o default -o nospace -W “$(grep “^Host” $HOME/.ssh/config | grep -v “[?*]” | cut -d” ” -f2)” scp sftp ssh

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:09:09 +0000

Thanks! I added a filter to exclude the wildcard entries i have in my config:

complete -o default -o nospace -W “$(grep “^Host” $HOME/.ssh/config | grep -v ‘[?*] | cut -d” ” -f2)” scp sftp ssh

By: MetalRufflez

MetalRufflez — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:25:26 +0000

Bro, why use ruby if you can use bash, its WAY easier and works in every *nix

complete -o default -o nospace -W “$(grep “^Host” $HOME/.ssh/config | cut -d” ” -f2)” scp sftp ssh

By: luca

luca — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:27:17 +0000

it’s easier if you just need to alias one single host, as you’re aliasing the whole command
instead, with the regular expression, you’ll be able to use a whole catalogue of aliases as you’re aliasing just the host-side of the ssh-command.

By: Tavis

Tavis — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:16:10 +0000

Nice trick but you can also just use aliasing:

alias connect=’ssh name@server’

Then all you have to type is ‘connect’ isn’t that easier than all this?