[SOLVED] How to make terminals to automatically ssh to another server?

jorgeluis · 08-07-2018, 06:20 PM

Hi! How can I configure my desktop (gnome 3.14.2 on RHEL server 3.7, non-root user) or tweak my .cshrc so that whenever I open a terminal (Applications->Terminal) it automatically SSHs to another server?
Context: my institution's setup makes you always login on a "display server", but all the actual work we do in "computation servers". Thus, every time I need to launch a process I need to open a terminal and manually ssh to one of the work servers, which becomes cumbersome.
(Note the system is setup in such a way that is impossible to login directly to the work servers, so the login and the desktop are always launched in the "display server")

I tried adding the ssh command to my .cshrc, but (of course!) it didn't work as it entered an infinite loop of "recursive" SSHing!

Thanks in advance for any help!

Keith Hedger · 08-07-2018, 06:28 PM

try creating a .desktop file set the exec command to yoir ssh commanx and set the runinterminal option to true then just launch th .desktop file

jorgeluis · 08-07-2018, 06:37 PM

Thanks for your reply, Keith. Could you please elaborate a little? I have no experience with .desktop files...

jorgeluis · 08-07-2018, 06:58 PM

OK, I've created the file ~/.local/share/applications/ssh_to_workserver01.desktop with the following contents:

Code:

[Desktop Entry] 
Encoding=UTF-8 
Verslon=l.0 
Name[en_US]=workserver01 
GenericName=SSH to workserver01 
Exec=ssh workserver01 
Terminal=true
Icon[en_US]=/usr/share/icons/gnome/32x32/apps/utilities-terminal.png 
Type=Application 
Categories=Application; 
Comment=workserver01

and I made it executable. How do I make my desktop "load" it? I see it nowhere in my Applications menu...

jorgeluis · 08-07-2018, 07:53 PM

OK, after some tweaking I manages to get the launcher to appear under "Applications->System Tools"! However, it opens a terminal but DOESN'T SSH to the intended server... what I am missing? Here are the contents of my launcher:

Code:

[Desktop Entry] 
Name=workserver01 
Comment=workserver01
TryExec=ssh workserver01 
Exec=ssh workserver01 
Icon=utilities-terminal
Type=Application 
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;TerminalEmulator;System;
StartupNotify=true
X-Desktop-File-Install-Version=0.15

jorgeluis · 08-07-2018, 08:11 PM

OK, got it to work!

This is the entry that worked:

Code:

[Desktop Entry] 
Name=workserver01 
Comment=workserver01
Exec=ssh workserver01 
Icon=utilities-terminal
Type=Application
Terminal=true 
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;TerminalEmulator;System;
StartupNotify=true
X-Desktop-File-Install-Version=0.15

...How can I "integrate it" so that it will appear when I right-click the mouse over the desktop?

jorgeluis · 08-07-2018, 08:54 PM

...or, at least, how can I make the launcher appear under "Applications->Favorites" (the 1st entry when clicking the "Applications" button)?

X-LFS-2010 · 08-08-2018, 12:09 AM

i have problems following your reasoning for having remote desktop but not wishing to use it

you can make an icon and set the icon properties to start xterm (or konsole, or whut). the options for start up will allow you to type in a bash script line to start xterm

X-LFS-2010 · 08-08-2018, 12:12 AM

you can run "ssh" to run commands on the remote computer and who's output dump back into your local terminal: you don't need to open a terminal

if your thinking about running "main framing commands" ssh is too slow. you want RPC remote procedure protocol. it's like ssh without all the garbage attached to it. (rather, ssh is a VERY bloated shell to rpc that prevents mainframe computing)

now that being said: you can make file sockets (in real unix, if your running unix, everything is a file). this means the file can be a tcp socket on both sides appearing to be a file. scripts can read and write though it (commands or data) quickly

but that's about sockets and rpc and you probably not mainframing anyhow

"computation servers" means mainframing. you probably have access to download free software that can run "parallel computing processes" and should do that. for example, in Mathematica one can run a program multiple cpu threads or multiple remote computers. which is probably rarely done by most users. it's all set up and ready to go. you can get it free if you buy a rasperi pi i think: which runs linux or freebsd currently.

linux has look-alike work-alike software and some of it i feel strongly will do computations in a higher level language and easily allow multiple sessions (ie on other computers) to combine as "computation servers" with absolutely no effort but specifying that is what is to be done on a particular calculation.