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SSH Secret Menu

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Re: SSH Secret Menu

#11

Post by lathiat »

piccirello wrote: post #6

I've been using SSH for ~15 years and never knew about these escape sequences. I'm eagerly awaiting my next hung session so that I can test `~.`. It's much nicer than my current approach of having to close that terminal window.

Have been using that weekly since probably 20 years. Will change your life :)

My other favourite is I very often SSH with -v to figure out why the connection is hanging, you rapidly figure out if DNS is failing, the TCP connection doesn't open, it does open but no traffic flows at all or it opens and SSH negotiation starts but never finishes. You can learn a lot just from this about what is wrong.

Re: SSH Secret Menu

#12

Post by MayeulC »

pram wrote: post #4

Yep the menu is handy for ssh tunneling. Maybe not a lot of people doing that these days though with stuff like dev tunnels and Tailscale.

I typically just create a "new" connection in a separate tab when I want to add tunneling.

I put new in quotes because I use another little-known feature, "ControlMaster". Multiplexes multiple connections into one, it makes making " new" sessions instant (can also be configured to persist a bit after disconnecting). Also useful for tab-completing remote paths. It does not prompt for authentication again, though. And it's a bit annoying when the connection hands (can be solved with ssh -o close, IIRC).

Re: SSH Secret Menu

#13

Post by sirfz »

piccirello wrote: post #6

I've been using SSH for ~15 years and never knew about these escape sequences. I'm eagerly awaiting my next hung session so that I can test `~.`. It's much nicer than my current approach of having to close that terminal window.

You can even chain them if you have deep ssh connections (i.e. ssh from one instance to another). I think it would be ~~. to terminate the 2nd hop.

Edit: it's already explained in the OP

Re: SSH Secret Menu

#17

Post by greyface- »

MayeulC wrote: post #9
_kst_ wrote: post #5

That doesn't do much good if you set `EscapeChar` to `none` in `.ssh/config`. I find it convenient not to have to worry about accidentally entering escape characters. YMMV.

Note that it only works after pressing enter, so the odds are slim. In practice, I don't think I ever hit it by accident.

I have noticed it while running ~/bin/some_command. The ~ doesn't echo until I also type the /. It doesn't cause any misbehavior because there is no binding for ~/ but can be slightly surprising.

Re: SSH Secret Menu

#18

Post by TacticalCoder »

piccirello wrote: post #6

I've been using SSH for ~15 years and never knew about these escape sequences. I'm eagerly awaiting my next hung session so that I can test `~.`. It's much nicer than my current approach of having to close that terminal window.

> It's much nicer than my current approach of having to close that terminal window.

You can also just kill the ssh process (say from another terminal). That way you get to keep your terminal window. And this works with everything "blocking" your terminal, not just ssh.

Re: SSH Secret Menu

#20

Post by Lasang »

Hidden or undocumented features like this always have a strange appeal. Part of it is nostalgia for older software where small Easter eggs or experimental features would sometimes ship in production builds.
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