vps-login

Turn first-time SSH setup into one guided command.

npx vps-login

It asks for:

• VPS IP/hostname
• SSH username
• SSH port
• VPS password (used once, never stored)
• Preferred alias

Before touching anything, it shows you a review screen — you can jump back and fix any field, or cancel outright. Once confirmed, it automatically:

1. Generates an SSH key if you don't already have a usable one.
2. Connects to the VPS using the password once.
3. Adds the public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the VPS.
4. Detects whether ~/.ssh/config already exists.
5. Preserves every existing Host entry already in that file.
6. Adds or updates only the alias you chose.
7. Tests the new passwordless connection before finishing.

Afterwards you just run:

ssh myvps

Reviewing and editing your answers

After you answer the prompts, you'll see:

Review before continuing:
  Host:     203.0.113.5
  Username: root
  Port:     22
  Password: ********
  Alias:    myvps

? Look right? › Yes, continue / Edit a field / Cancel

Choosing Edit a field lets you pick any one value, fix it, and you're brought right back to the summary — so a typo doesn't mean starting over or, worse, connecting to the wrong box. This step is skipped automatically in --yes (non-interactive) mode.

Managing what you've set up

vps-login list        # or: vps-login ls

Shows every Host entry in ~/.ssh/config, tagging which ones were created by this tool ([vps-login]) versus ones you added by hand ([manual]) — so removal never touches something it didn't create.

vps-login remove myvps    # or: vps-login rm myvps

1. Asks for confirmation (shows the target host/user first).
2. Connects with the still-installed key to strip that key's exact line from the VPS's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys (best-effort — a warning is printed instead of failing if the server's unreachable).
3. Removes the Host block from ~/.ssh/config, leaving every other entry untouched.
4. If the local private key isn't referenced by any other alias, asks whether to delete it too. If another alias still uses it, it's kept automatically.

Flags: --keep-remote-key, --keep-local-key, -y/--yes (skip prompts).

Non-interactive / scripted usage

Every setup prompt has a matching flag, so the tool also works unattended (CI, provisioning scripts, dotfiles bootstrap, etc.):

npx vps-login setup \
  --host 203.0.113.5 \
  --username root \
  --port 22 \
  --password 'hunter2' \
  --alias myvps \
  --yes

setup is the default command, so vps-login --host ... --yes works the same as vps-login setup --host ... --yes. Any flag you omit falls back to an interactive prompt, unless --yes is set, in which case missing required values cause the command to fail loudly instead of hanging on a prompt.

Add --dry-run to preview exactly what setup would do — the key it would create/reuse, the Host block it would write — without changing anything.

All setup flags

| Flag | Description | Default | |---|---|---| | -H, --host <host> | VPS IP or hostname | — | | -u, --username <user> | SSH username | root | | -p, --port <port> | SSH port | 22 | | -P, --password <password> | VPS password (one-time use) | — | | -a, --alias <alias> | SSH config alias | derived from host | | -k, --key-path <path> | Explicit key path to create/reuse | ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 | | -t, --key-type <type> | ed25519 | rsa | ecdsa | ed25519 | | --force-new-key | Always generate a fresh key | off | | --skip-test | Skip the final connection check | off | | --dry-run | Preview only, no changes | off | | -y, --yes | Fail instead of prompting; skips the review step | off |

Design notes

• Idempotent. Re-running against the same host de-duplicates authorized_keys and updates (rather than duplicates) the matching Host block in ~/.ssh/config.
• Non-destructive. Existing Host entries and comments in ~/.ssh/config are preserved exactly; the file is backed up once to ~/.ssh/config.bak before the first write.
• Scoped removal. Every Host block this tool writes carries a # managed-by: vps-login marker, so list/remove can tell the difference between what it manages and entries you added yourself.
• Key reuse. If you already have a default key (id_ed25519/id_rsa/id_ecdsa), it's reused by default instead of generating a new one. Use --key-path to keep a dedicated key per VPS, or --force-new-key to always generate fresh.
• No password storage. The password is only ever held in memory for the single bootstrap connection and is never written to disk or logged.
• Cross-distro. The remote-side key install/removal is a small POSIX shell one-liner (no dependency on ssh-copy-id being present on the VPS).

Requirements

• Node.js 16+
• The OpenSSH client tools (ssh-keygen) available on your local PATH

Local install

npm install
node bin/vps-login.js