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user13185
Asked: 2011-08-18 08:37:34 +0800 CST

Is it possible to change value of $TERM when calling ssh?

  • 772

On my local terminal, I have TERM=konsole-256color, but not all remote machine I connect to have this definition.

Is it possible to make ssh change the TERM on remote machine? Without changing .bash* scripts on remote machine, just by changing configuration on my local desktop?

linux ssh environment-variables terminal

5 Answers

  1. I have added the following alias to my .bashrc file. It uses O G's answer but wraps it in an alias. Works like a charm ;)

    # Force xterm-color on ssh sessions
alias ssh='TERM=xterm-color ssh'
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  2. man ssh:

         ssh reads ~/.ssh/environment, and adds lines of the format
     “VARNAME=value” to the environment if the file exists and users are
     allowed to change their environment.  For more information, see the
     PermitUserEnvironment option in sshd_config(5).

    Edit:

    Rats, I hoped it could be on the local side, still, if there's a will, there's a way. man ssh_conf:

    SendEnv
             Specifies what variables from the local environ(7) should be sent
             to the server.  Note that environment passing is only supported
             for protocol 2.  The server must also support it, and the server
             must be configured to accept these environment variables.  Refer
             to AcceptEnv in sshd_config(5) for how to configure the server.
             Variables are specified by name, which may contain wildcard char-
             acters.  Multiple environment variables may be separated by
             whitespace or spread across multiple SendEnv directives.  The
             default is not to send any environment variables.

    Depending on the configuration of sshd on the receiving end this may or may not fulfil the requirement of "no remote file modification".

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  3. TERM=vt100 ssh some.host.name

    On remote, execute echo $TERM.

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  4. On 2021-06-04, "allow ssh_config SetEnv to override $TERM" was committed to openssh-portable, which sounds like it will let you set SetEnv TERM in ~/.ssh/config, such as in a Host directive. (Or it will let you as soon as a release is cut with this patch, presumably.)

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  5. Here's my quick and dirty solution I just threw together. I'd prefer something better. I guess I could use a shell script instead. Adjusting TERM values is left as an exercise to the reader.

    # To move into a separate plugin...
function ssh {
   if [[ "${TERM}" = screen* || konsole* ]]; then
     env TERM=screen ssh "$@"
   else
     ssh "$@"
   fi
}

    Ideally, it would do something like check the TERMs on the other side, using the ControlPersist stuff to prevent long delays for multiple connections.

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