Create quick-access ssh shortcuts

Aug 11, '06 07:30:04AM

Contributed by: Azathoth

To quickly open an ssh connection from nearly anywhere on your Mac, do the following:

  1. Open TextEdit and type in your connection string in the form of: ssh://user@host.com
  2. Select the whole line and drag and drop it on the Desktop. The result will be a *.inetloc file.
  3. Move the file to any folder you like. I made one named ~/connections that holds all of my *.inetloc files. You can rename this file to whatever you like, and even change its icon.
  4. Now you can drag and drop the *.inetloc file to the Dock, the Finder's Sidebar or Tool bar, or to anywhere else. (It can even be selected with Spotlight)
  5. If you use LaunchBar, open the Launchbar Configuration screen (Command-Y) and add another rule for your connections folder. Now your SSH connections can be opened with LaunchBar. I believe you can do similar with LaunchBar and Quicksilver, enabling quick launching of your SSH shortcuts.
A more lengthy explanation is available in my blog, containing some screenshots as well.

[robg adds: This doesn't seem to work for a few of my sites, which use the domain in the username -- i.e. my command would look like this: ssh://robg@mydomain.com@www.mydomain.com. The dual @ signs seem to confuse the ssh command, resulting in an incorrect command format: ssh mydomain.com@www.mydomain.com. For my domains that don't use this format, however, this trick works quite well.]

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