Question

I am trying to open an interactive ssh shell through fabric.

Requirements:

• Use fabrics hosts in the connection string to remote
• Open fully interactive shell in current terminal
• Works on osx and ubuntu
• No need for data transfer between fabric/python and remote. So fabric task can end in background.

So far:

fabfile.py:

def test_ssh():
    from subprocess import Popen
    Popen('ssh user@1.2.3.4 -i "bla.pem"', shell=True)

In terminal:

localprompt$ fab test_ssh
localprompt$ tcsetattr: Input/output error

[remote ubuntu welcome here]

remoteprompt$ |

Then if I try to input a command on the remote prompt it is executed locally and I drop back to the local prompt.
Does anyone know a solution?

Note: I am aware of fabrics open_shell, but this does not work for me since the stdout lags behind, rendering this unusable.

Answer 1

A slight modification does the trick:

def test_ssh():
    from subprocess import call
    call('ssh user@1.2.3.4 -i "bla.pem"', shell=True)

As the answer to this question suggests the error suggests the error comes from the inability of ssh to connect to the stdin/out of a process in the background.

With call the fabric task does not end in the background, but I am fine with that as long as as it is not interfering with my stdin/out.