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This question, in different forms, has been asked hundreds of times, and the answers are always similar - I agree with them in general case, but still would like to ask it again as my case is a bit different.

My workflow involves interaction over SSH with various devices manufactured by company I work in and I would like my SSH client to:

  • Remember the password for a host once I successfully login
  • Do not require me to manually delete entries from known-hosts file in case host identification changed.

The devices are always in an isolated, local network without internet access. I cannot use key-based authentication since these devices have no persistent storage (keys will not survive a reboot). I'd also like to use the same PC to access hardware in different setups - IPs and passwords are the same, but hosts IDs are different.

Regular, OpenSSH client is painful in this scenario - while I understand that's because of the security I'd like to voluntarily opt out of it.

Is this somehow possible without forking OpenSSH and making these changes by myself?

user1234567
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    `expect` could be part of one of the solutions. – Rui F Ribeiro Mar 22 '18 at 12:58
  • What is the OS on your workstation machine? If *nix, check the `StrictHostKeyChecking` option in either `/etc/ssh/ssh_config` or your `~.ssh/config` file. Also, some desktop environments will save password after first login during session - if your devices all end up with teh same username and password for access, this alone may work. if you are on Windows, not sure what can be done via `putty.exe` for the `StrictHostKeyChecking` equivalent, but I think that you can save a username and password in a "saved host config" option. – ivanivan Mar 22 '18 at 13:28

2 Answers2

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You might be able to achieve this by writing a script that first deletes the relevant entry from known_hosts and then runs ssh using expect as outlined in Shell Script for logging into a ssh server

Hans-Martin Mosner
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1) passwords : you can change a boot image of this devices and write a key in it permanently , so you do not need to enter password ever . see if it possible ... not sure about which devices you use .

2) put a following code in ~/.ssh/config 

     Host * 
        StrictHostKeyChecking no
        UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null

this will set you up .

Dimitry Boguslavsky
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