Go to Server is a Bash script dedicated, in the first place, to Linux system administrators who have a lot of servers to connect to and find it hard to remember and/or manage all those credentials.
Installing go-to-server is a breeze: Unpack the go-to-server.tar.gz archive by executing tar xzf go-to-server.tar.gz wherever you want, make all files executable with chmod +x *, and run the Install script by typing ./install.sh in the project's directory. The interactive installation script will offer settings like the path of the configuration file, the installed program's destination, or a data file where information about servers is stored.
The installation script sets everything up that is necessary for the go-to-server script to be run in a "standard Linux way". Use the server-list template included in this package to enter your server credentials. To connect to a server with credentials from the data file, type go-to-server "server-name" ["root"]. If you chose the Expect version of the script, it is possible to pass "root" as the second parameter as shown in the example. Please note that the root parameter is optional; it is used for logging in as root automatically through the ordinary user. Using the Expect version of the script is not recommended. The Xclip version is installed by default, and it is the recommended way to use this script. Use Shift + Insert to paste the user password and Ctrl + Shift + V to paste the superuser (root) password when using the recommended, Xclip version.
go-to-server server-name
Now use the Shift + Insert key combination to paste your password. Then use sudo su - or su - and Ctrl + Shift + V to paste the root password.
The installation script also installs the tools for copying files between the user's machine and the server or vice-versa. To copy files/directories from your machine to a server server-1, use the following command:
copy-to-server server-1 /from/my/machine/dir /to/server/dir
To copy files/directories from a server server-1 to your machine, enter the following:
copy-from-server server-1 /from/server/dir /to/my/machine/dir
The last two fields can be used to add SSH and SCP options respectively. For example, -p 2233 is used to change the port to connect to with SSH; -P 2233 is used to change the port used by the SCP tool. See ssh(1) and scp(1) for a list of all available options. Passwords have to be encoded in the base64 format...
# echo -n "jdoe-password" | base64
amRvZS1wYXNzd29yZA==
# echo -n "jdoe-root-password" | base64
amRvZS1yb290LXBhc3N3b3Jk
Replace the values jdoe-password and jdoe-root-password with the values obtained using the commands given above.
server-1;1.2.3.4;jdoe;jdoe-password;jdoe-root-password;su -;-p 2233;-P 2233;ssh-private-key-path
The final row would look as follows...
server-1;1.2.3.4;jdoe;amRvZS1wYXNzd29yZA==;amRvZS1yb290LXBhc3N3b3Jk;su -;-p 2233;-P 2233;/home/user/.ssh/id_rsa
The SSH private key path is optional: If you need to authenticate using an SSH private key, you can specify its path as the last value.