Native support in OpenSSH 7.3

OpenSSH 7.3 was released on August 1, 2016. That version features an Include directive for ssh_config(5) files which is documented as follows:

Include the specified configuration file(s). Multiple pathnames may be specified and each pathname may contain glob(3) wildcards and, for user configurations, shell-like “~” references to user home directories. Files without absolute paths are assumed to be in ~/.ssh if included in a user configuration file or /etc/ssh if included from the system configuration file. Include directive may appear inside a Match or Host block to perform conditional inclusion.

This covers most use cases poet was designed for. As of February 2018, this repo is officially unmaintained.

Feel free to fork it.

Migrating away from poet

If you want to migrate from poet to this native support, back up your ~/.ssh/config and use the new directive:

$ ssh -V # make sure you have at least 7.3
OpenSSH_7.4p1, LibreSSL 2.5.0
$ cd .ssh
$ mv config config.poet # back up your existing config generated by poet
$ echo "Include config.d/*" > config # Use the new directive

Split your ssh_config into separate files!

Getting started

$ gem install poet
$ poet bootstrap

This will move your ~/.ssh/config into ~/.ssh/config.d/ and create an identical ~/.ssh/config. Organize files in ~/.ssh/config.d/ any way you want (just remember to re-run poet afterwards).

To edit ~/.ssh/config.d/some_file, run poet edit some_file. Poet will open your favorite $EDITOR and automatically create a new ~/.ssh/config when you quit the editor.

Advanced usage

Poet won't touch your existing ssh_config. If you want to play with it, pass a different filename to the "-o" option. Or move your existing config out of the way.

Bash completion

A Bash-compatible completion script is available for all commands and some of their arguments, most notably for poet edit.

Run poet completeme to copy the script to $HOME/.bash_completion.d/. The command outputs instructions how to properly source the file.

Un-ignoring files

Stanzas under ~/.ssh/config.d/ with an extension of .disabled are ignored by default. Every now and then, when you do need it, run poet --with CONFIG to explicitly include CONFIG.disabled in your generated ssh_config. You can even include several by running several --with options or using --with CONFIG1,CONFIG2.

Use poet ls (or poet ls --tree) to see a list (or tree) of all your config files.

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

• Fork the project.
• Make your feature addition or bug fix.
• Add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.