shellkey

Simple CLI to transmit your local SSH public key to a remote host's authorized_keys.

Requirements

• Node.js (12+)
• ssh-keygen available on PATH
• Network access to the target host (SSH)

Supported platforms

• Windows
• Linux

Install

Clone the repo and install dependencies:

npm install

Usage

Generate or reuse your local keys and transmit the public key to a remote host:

node index.js user@host

Behavior

• If no ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub exist locally, shellkey will create the .ssh directory (if needed) and run ssh-keygen to create them.
• The CLI will prompt for the remote user's password to connect and append your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote.

Notes & Troubleshooting

• Ensure ssh-keygen is installed (OpenSSH client tools).
• The remote host must accept password authentication for initial connection.
• On Windows, the tool uses the current user's home .ssh directory. On Linux it uses ~/.ssh.
• If the tool fails to write remotely, check remote permissions and that ~/.ssh/authorized_keys exists or is writable.

License

• MIT

Automated key based SSH Authentication

Usage

shellkey <user>@<host>