Python: simple class to perform commands and copy files (scp) on ssh using subprocess and native ssh client (OpenSSH).

ssh-utils.py

import subprocess
import os
from pathlib import Path
from typing import Union

class SshClient():
    """ Perform commands and copy files on ssh using subprocess 
        and native ssh client (OpenSSH).
    """
    
    def __init__(self,
                 user: str,
                 remote: str,
                 key_path: Union[str, Path]) -> None:
        """

        Args:
            user (str): username for the remote
            remote (str): remote host IP/DNS
            key_path (str or pathlib.Path): path to .pem file
        """
        self.user = user
        self.remote = remote
        self.key_path = str(key_path)
        
        
    def cmd(self, 
            cmds: list[str],
            check=True,
            strict_host_key_checking=False,
            **run_kwargs) -> subprocess.CompletedProcess:
        
        """runs commands consecutively, ensuring success of each
            after calling the next command.

        Args:
            cmds (list[str]): list of commands to run.
            strict_host_key_checking (bool, optional): Defaults to True.
        """
        
        strict_host_key_checking = 'yes' if strict_host_key_checking else 'no'
        cmd = ' && '.join(cmds)
        return subprocess.run(
            [
                'ssh',
                '-i', self.key_path,
                '-o', f'StrictHostKeyChecking={strict_host_key_checking}', 
                '-o', 'UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null',
                '-o', 'LogLevel=ERROR',
                f'{self.user}@{self.remote}',
                cmd
            ],
            check=check,
            **run_kwargs
        )
        
        
    def scp(self,
            sources: list[Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike]],
            destination: Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike],
            check=True,
            strict_host_key_checking=False,
            recursive=False,
            **run_kwargs) -> subprocess.CompletedProcess:
        
        """Copies `srouce` file to remote `destination` using the 
            native `scp` command.
            
        Args:
            source (Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike]): List of source files path.
            destination (Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike]): Destination path on remote.
        """

        strict_host_key_checking = 'yes' if strict_host_key_checking else 'no'

        return subprocess.run(
            list(filter(bool, [
                'scp',
                '-i', self.key_path,
                '-o', f'StrictHostKeyChecking={strict_host_key_checking}', 
                '-o', 'UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null',
                '-o', 'LogLevel=ERROR',
                '-r' if recursive else '',
                *map(str, sources),
                # sources, 
                f'{self.user}@{self.remote}:{str(destination)}',
            ])),
            check=check,
            **run_kwargs
        )
        
    def validate(self):
        return self.cmd([f'echo " "'], check=False).returncode == 0


    def ssh_connect_cmd(self) -> str:
        return f'ssh -i {self.key_path} {self.user}@{self.remote}'

        

usage:

from ssh_utils import SshClient

client = SshClient(user='username', remote='remote_addr', key_path='/path/to/key.pem')

# run a list of commands
client.cmd(['mkdir ~/testdir', 'ls -la', 'echo done!'])

# copy files/dirs
client.scp('my_file.txt', '~/testdir')

Is there a way to pass in the user's password and not use the key ?

Not with the native ssh command. Probably need to install sshpass on the remote and modify client.cmd function accordingly.

Thanks

Thanks for this gist, I got the link to here from Stackoverflow.

I pretty much prefer your tiny SSH client code rather than importing an entire module just for running something remotely via ssh.

Well done!

For my project I removed the key_path as I deploy the ssh key in the standard user directory.