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jhourback
Asked: 2012-03-14 14:27:19 +0800 CST

ssh but keep current working directory

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I often want to ssh into a different server, but retain my working directory. (All our servers have the same NFS and thus the same directory path usually exists on all servers.) Is it possible to do this?

linux unix ssh

4 Answers

  1. I personally don't like to alias ssh. The fewest number of characters I found to do the job is :

    ssh user@hostname -t "cd $PWD;bash"
    • 3

  2. If the remote server has been preconfigured (in sshd_config) with

    AcceptEnv CURRENT_DIR

    And you include

    cd "$CURRENT_DIR"

    as the last line in the remote servers' ~/.bashrc, you can connect with

    CURRENT_DIR="$PWD" ssh user@host -o SendEnv=CURRENT_DIR

    It's a workaround, but it'll...work.

    • 2

  3. I found a nice solution on superuser.com which is much like @adaptr's solution but without manually setting the environment variable.

    By creating an alias for ssh you can set that variable automatically:

    alias ssh='env SSH_PWD="$PWD" /bin/ssh'

    Configure ssh in ~/.ssh/config to send the SSH_PWD variable:

    For a single host add this:

    Host myhost
  SendEnv SSH_PWD

    Or for all hosts add this to the bottom of the file:

    SendEnv SSH_PWD

    And on the remote server in your .profile or .bashrc:

    if [ -n "$SSH_PWD" ] && [ -d "$SSH_PWD" ]; then
   cd "$SSH_PWD"
   unset SSH_PWD
fi
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  4. If you can't change the remote servers's configuration and use key-based SSH logins with an ssh-agent (thus sparing you to have to enter your password or key passphrase every time), another hackish approach:

    On your local machine, create a wrapper script which is in your path (eg. /usr/local/bin/cdssh)

    #!/bin/bash
TMPFILE="/tmp/$(basename $0).$$.tmp"
echo "cd `pwd`" > $TMPFILE
scp -q $TMPFILE $1:~/.cwdfile
ssh $@
rm $TMPFILE

    On the remote machine, add the following part to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile: 

    if [ -f ~/.cwdfile ]; then
   cd ~/.cwdfile
   rm ~/.cwdfile
fi

    Obviously, this is a wild hack, but it works.

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