Manage a lot of open ssh sessions to servers with id's for hostname

xterm has a -T flag that lets you set the window title. putty lets you set it in the Behavior sub-menu of the Window options.

Assuming the remotes hosts are *nix, you can also set your login prompt to be the hostname.

In bash or ksh, doing export PS1="[\u@\h]$ " results in something like:

[mazianni@europe]$

First of all you should try to automate your process so you aren't running a lot of ssh sessions by hand. To follow up on the xterm -T option, you can also set the xterm title via shell escapes. I think most terminal programs support a similar function. See the Xterm Title Howto for details. Then use a wrapper for your ssh command, something like this:

#!/usr/bin/bash
if [ x$1 != x ]
then
  remote=$1
else
  read -p "host? " remote
fi
echo -ne "\033]0;$remote\007"
exec ssh $remote

I verified that works in xterms and in the mac terminal.app, like I said it probably works in most terminal programs which emulate exterm.

Why not just setup meaningful CNAME records that point at the ID type hostname. You can then connect via the CNAME instead. If you don't have access to DNS for these hosts, you could do it with a HOSTS file too - which will work for any computer it is installed on.

Putty will display whatever you used to connect in its title bar. Can't say for XTERM.

Alternatively, if you are using PuTTY, you could just configure a Session with the name you want in the title bar (Window > Behaviour option in menu), the ugly hostname/ip address in the destination field, and your preferred name as the Session name. Then you can click on the memorable Session name to open the connection and have the title as you want.

You might also want to do something to the .bash_profile for users sshing in so that the preferred name is used in the prompt on the box, but you said you couldn't change anything on the box (seems likely you can change your own profile though).

The other answers are correct, but I find that it is more useful to have a good script and shortcuts to it.

I personally use Ion3 on Debian and have F4 bound to the following script. Ion3 prompts me for the hostname:

#!/bin/bash
HOST=$1
x-terminal-emulator -t $HOST -e ssh -l root $HOST

If you want a panel shortcut that asks you for a hostname, then create a panel shortcut that links to the following script:

#!/bin/bash
HOST=$(zenity --entry --text="Connect to SSH Host")
x-terminal-emulator -t $HOST -e ssh -l root $HOST

Finally, you can also just create a script and then have links to that script, each for a different host.

#!/bin/bash
HOST=$0
x-terminal-emulator -t $HOST -e ssh -l root $HOST

Then, create links such as: ln -s ssh-script.sh yourhost.example.com

You would then, for each such link, create a separate desktop/panel shortcut.

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007"'

Will change the title of your Mac OS X Terminal window to the given string. Then you can easily choose which terminal window you want from the Window menu in Terminal.

If $HOSTNAME isn't defined as well as you'd like, you can insert any arbitrary string with a subshell command, like this:

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;$(cat /etc/my.host.name)\007"'