You chosen a command shell and spent months to stuffed it with shortcuts and colors. But when you move from local to remote host using ssh you lose it all. The mission of xxh is to bring your favorite shell wherever you go through the ssh.

Install or update

python3 -m pip install --upgrade xonssh-xxh

After install you can just using xxh command as replace ssh to connecting to the host because xxh has seamless support of basic ssh command arguments.

Usage

$ ./xxh -h                                                                  ____  __________     @    @ 
usage: xxh <host from ~/.ssh/config>                                     ______  /          \     \__/
usage: xxh [ssh arguments] [user@]host[:port] [xxh arguments]             ____  /    ______  \   /   \
usage: xxh [-p SSH_PORT] [-l SSH_LOGIN] [-i SSH_PRIVATE_KEY]            _____  /    / __   \  \ /   _/
           [-o SSH_OPTION -o ...] [+P PASSWORD] [+PP]                     ___ (    / /  /   \  \   /
           [user@]host[:port]                                                  \   \___/    /  /  /
           [+i] [+if] [+iff] [+hhr] [+v] [+vv] [+s SHELL]                   ____\          /__/  /
           [+hh HOST_XXH_HOME] [+hf HOST_EXEC_FILE] [+hc HOST_EXEC_CMD]    /     \________/     /
           [+xc XXH_CONFIG] [+lh LOCAL_XXH_HOME]                          /____________________/

There is ~/.xxh/.xxhc yaml config to save arguments and reuse it:

hosts:
  myhost:              # settings for myhost
    -p: 2222             # set special port

  "company-.*":        # for all hosts by regex pattern
    +if:                 # don't asking about install (++install-force)
    +hhr:                # remove host xxh home after disconnect (++host-xxh-home-remove)
    +hh: /tmp/.xxh       # use special xxh home directory (++host-xxh-home)

The arguments will be automatically added when you run xxh myhost or xxh company-server1.

Supported shells

Xonsh shell — stable version with pipeliner, bar, autojump plugins.

Zsh shell — beta version with omz and p10k plugins. Help wanted for testing and improving entrypoint.

Fish shell — alpha version. Help wanted for testing and improving entrypoint.

Bash shell — zero version that just runs bash installed on the host with plugins like vim.

Search xxh shell on Github or Bitbucket or create your shell entrypoint to use another portable shell.

Q&A

What is plugin? It is the set of scripts which will be run on the host when you go using xxh. It could be shell settings, environment variables, plugins, color themes and everything you need. You can find the links to plugins on xxh-shells repos. Feel free to fork it.

How xxh works? When you run xxh myhost command xxh download portable shell and store locally to future use. Then if it needed xxh upload the portable shell, init scripts and plugins to the host. Finally xxh make ssh connection to the host and run portable shell without any system installs and affection on the target host.

What about speed? The first connection takes time for downloading and uploading portable shell. It depends on portable shell size and channel speed. But when xxh is installed on the host and you do just xxh myhost then it works as ordinary ssh connection speed.

Development

In the xxh-dev repo there is full dockerised environment for development, testing and contribution. The process of testing and development is orchestrated by xde tool and as easy as possible.

Community

Spread the word! If you like the idea of xxh click ⭐ on the repo and tweet the link.

We have teams. If you're in team it does not oblige to do something. The main goal of teams is to create group of passionate people who could help or support in complex questions. Some people could be expert in one shell and newbie in another shell and mutual assistance is the key to xxh evolution. Ask join.

Thanks

• niess for https://github.com/niess/linuxdeploy-plugin-python/
• probonopd and TheAssassin for https://github.com/AppImage
• scopatz, gforsyth, astronouth7303, laloch, melund and all xore for https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh