Writing a client with Twisted Conch


In the original days of computing, rsh/rlogin were used to connect to remote computers and execute commands. These commands had the problem that the passwords and commands were sent in the clear. To solve this problem, the SSH protocol was created. Twisted Conch implements the second version of this protocol.

Using an SSH Command Endpoint

If your objective is to execute a command on a remote host over an SSH connection, then the easiest approach may be to use twisted.conch.endpoints.SSHCommandClientEndpoint . If you haven’t used endpoints before, first take a look at the endpoint howto to get an idea of how endpoints work in general.

Conch provides an endpoint implementation which establishes an SSH connection, performs necessary authentication, opens a channel, and launches a command in that channel. It then associates the output of that command with the input of a protocol you supply, and associates output from that protocol with the input of that command. Effectively, this lets you ignore most of the complexity of SSH and just interact with a remote process as though it were any other stream-oriented connection - such as TCP or SSL.

Conch also provides an endpoint that is initialized with an already established SSH connection. This endpoint just opens a new channel on the existing connection and launches a command in that.

Using the SSHCommandClientEndpoint is about as simple as using any other stream-oriented client endpoint. Just create the endpoint defining where the SSH server to connect to is and a factory defining what kind of protocol to use to interact with the command and let them get to work using the endpoint’s connect method.


#!/usr/bin/env python
# Copyright (c) Twisted Matrix Laboratories.
# See LICENSE for details.
from __future__ import print_function

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    import echoclient_ssh
    from twisted.internet.task import react
    react(echoclient_ssh.main, sys.argv[1:])

import os, getpass

from twisted.python.filepath import FilePath
from twisted.python.usage import Options
from twisted.internet.defer import Deferred
from twisted.internet.protocol import Factory, Protocol
from twisted.internet.endpoints import UNIXClientEndpoint
from twisted.conch.ssh.keys import EncryptedKeyError, Key
from twisted.conch.client.knownhosts import KnownHostsFile
from twisted.conch.endpoints import SSHCommandClientEndpoint

class EchoOptions(Options):
    optParameters = [
        ("host", "h", "localhost",
         "hostname of the SSH server to which to connect"),
        ("port", "p", 22,
         "port number of SSH server to which to connect", int),
        ("username", "u", getpass.getuser(),
         "username with which to authenticate with the SSH server"),
        ("identity", "i", None,
         "file from which to read a private key to use for authentication"),
        ("password", None, None,
         "password to use for authentication"),
        ("knownhosts", "k", "~/.ssh/known_hosts",
         "file containing known ssh server public key data"),

    optFlags = [
        ["no-agent", None, "Disable use of key agent"],

class NoiseProtocol(Protocol):
    def connectionMade(self):
        self.finished = Deferred()
        self.strings = ["bif", "pow", "zot"]

    def sendNoise(self):
        if self.strings:
            self.transport.write(self.strings.pop(0) + "\n")

    def dataReceived(self, data):
        print("Server says:", data)

    def connectionLost(self, reason):

def readKey(path):
        return Key.fromFile(path)
    except EncryptedKeyError:
        passphrase = getpass.getpass("%r keyphrase: " % (path,))
        return Key.fromFile(path, passphrase=passphrase)

class ConnectionParameters(object):
    def __init__(self, reactor, host, port, username, password, keys,
                 knownHosts, agent):
        self.reactor = reactor
        self.host = host
        self.port = port
        self.username = username
        self.password = password
        self.keys = keys
        self.knownHosts = knownHosts
        self.agent = agent

    def fromCommandLine(cls, reactor, argv):
        config = EchoOptions()

        keys = []
        if config["identity"]:
            keyPath = os.path.expanduser(config["identity"])
            if os.path.exists(keyPath):

        knownHostsPath = FilePath(os.path.expanduser(config["knownhosts"]))
        if knownHostsPath.exists():
            knownHosts = KnownHostsFile.fromPath(knownHostsPath)
            knownHosts = None

        if config["no-agent"] or "SSH_AUTH_SOCK" not in os.environ:
            agentEndpoint = None
            agentEndpoint = UNIXClientEndpoint(
                reactor, os.environ["SSH_AUTH_SOCK"])

        return cls(
            reactor, config["host"], config["port"],
            config["username"], config["password"], keys,
            knownHosts, agentEndpoint)

    def endpointForCommand(self, command):
        return SSHCommandClientEndpoint.newConnection(
            self.reactor, command, self.username, self.host,
            port=self.port, keys=self.keys, password=self.password,
            agentEndpoint=self.agent, knownHosts=self.knownHosts)

def main(reactor, *argv):
    parameters = ConnectionParameters.fromCommandLine(reactor, argv)
    endpoint = parameters.endpointForCommand(b"/bin/cat")

    factory = Factory()
    factory.protocol = NoiseProtocol

    d = endpoint.connect(factory)
    d.addCallback(lambda proto: proto.finished)
    return d

For completeness, this example includes a lot of code to support different styles of authentication, reading (and possibly updating) existing known_hosts files, and parsing command line options. Focus on the latter half of the main function to see the code that is most directly responsible for actually doing the necessary SSH connection setup. SSHCommandClientEndpoint accepts quite a few options, since there is a lot of flexibility in SSH and many possible different server configurations, but once the endpoint object itself is created, its use is no more complicated than the use of any other endpoint: pass a factory to its connect method and attach a callback to the resulting Deferred to do something with the protocol instance. If you use an endpoint that creates new connections, the connection attempt can be cancelled by calling cancel() on this Deferred .

In this case, the connected protocol instance is only used to make the example wait until the client has finished talking to the server, which happens after the small amount of example data has been sent to the server and bounced back by the /bin/cat process the protocol is interacting with.

Several of the options accepted by SSHCommandClientEndpoint.newConnection should be easy to understand. The endpoint takes a reactor which it uses to do any and all I/O it needs to do. It also takes a command which it executes on the remote server once the SSH connection is established and authenticated; this command is a single string, perhaps including spaces or other special shell symbols, and is interpreted by a shell on the server. It takes a username with which it identifies itself to the server for authentication purposes. It takes an optional password argument which will also be used for authentication - if the server supports password authentication (prefer keys instead where possible, see below). It takes a host (either a name or an IP address) and a port number, defining where to connect.

Some of the other options may bear further explanation.

The keys argument gives any SSH Key objects which may be useful for authentication. These keys are available to the endpoint for authentication, but only keys that the server indicates are useful will actually be used. This argument is optional. If key authentication against the server is either unnecessary or undesired, it may be omitted entirely.

The agentEndpoint argument gives the SSHCommandClientEndpoint an opportunity to connect to an SSH authentication agent. The agent may already be loaded with keys, or may have some other way to authenticate a connection. Using the agent can mean the process actually establishing the SSH connection doesn’t need to load any authentication material (passwords or keys) itself (often convenient in case keys are encrypted and potentially more secure, since only the agent process ever actually holds the secrets). The value for this argument is another IStreamClientEndpoint . Often in a typical NIX desktop environment, the *SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable will give the location of an AF_UNIX socket. This explains the value echoclient_ssh.py assigns this parameter when –no-agent is not given.

The knownHosts argument accepts a KnownHostsFile instance and controls how server keys are checked and stored. This object has the opportunity to reject server keys if they differ from expectations. It can also save server keys when they are first observed.

Finally, there is one option that is not demonstrated in the example - the ui argument. This argument is closely related to the knownHosts argument described above. KnownHostsFile may require user-input under certain circumstances - for example, to ask if it should accept a server key the first time it is observed. The ui object is how this user-input is obtained. By default, a ConsoleUI instance associated with /dev/tty will be used. This gives about the same behavior as is seen in a standard command-line ssh client. See SSHCommandClientEndpoint.newConnection for details about how edge cases are handled for this default value. For use of SSHCommandClientEndpoint that is intended to be completely autonomous, applications will probably want to specify a custom ui object which can make the necessary decisions without user-input.

It is also possible to run commands (one or more) over an already-established connection. This is done using the alternate constructor SSHCommandClientEndpoint.existingConnection . The connection argument to that function can be obtained by accessing transport.conn on an already connected protocol.


#!/usr/bin/env python
# Copyright (c) Twisted Matrix Laboratories.
# See LICENSE for details.
from __future__ import print_function

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    import echoclient_shared_ssh
    from twisted.internet.task import react
    react(echoclient_shared_ssh.main, sys.argv[1:])

from twisted.internet.task import cooperate
from twisted.internet.defer import Deferred, gatherResults
from twisted.internet.protocol import Factory, Protocol

from twisted.conch.endpoints import SSHCommandClientEndpoint

from echoclient_ssh import ConnectionParameters

class PrinterProtocol(Protocol):
    def dataReceived(self, data):
        print("Got some data:", data, end=' ')

    def connectionLost(self, reason):
        print("Lost my connection")

def main(reactor, *argv):
    parameters = ConnectionParameters.fromCommandLine(reactor, argv)
    endpoint = parameters.endpointForCommand(b"/bin/cat")

    done = []
    factory = Factory()
    factory.protocol = Protocol
    d = endpoint.connect(factory)

    def gotConnection(proto):
        conn = proto.transport.conn

        for i in range(50):
            factory = Factory()
            factory.protocol = PrinterProtocol
            factory.done = Deferred()

            e = SSHCommandClientEndpoint.existingConnection(
                conn, b"/bin/echo %d" % (i,))
            yield e.connect(factory)

    d.addCallback(lambda work: cooperate(work).whenDone())
    d.addCallback(lambda ignored: gatherResults(done))

    return d

Writing a client

In case the endpoint is missing some necessary functionality, or in case you want to interact with a different part of an SSH server - such as one of its subsystems (for example, SFTP), you may need to use the lower-level Conch client interface. This is described below.

Writing a client with Conch involves sub-classing 4 classes: twisted.conch.ssh.transport.SSHClientTransport , twisted.conch.ssh.userauth.SSHUserAuthClient , twisted.conch.ssh.connection.SSHConnection , and twisted.conch.ssh.channel.SSHChannel . We’ll start out with SSHClientTransport because it’s the base of the client.

The Transport

from twisted.conch import error
from twisted.conch.ssh import transport
from twisted.internet import defer

class ClientTransport(transport.SSHClientTransport):

    def verifyHostKey(self, pubKey, fingerprint):
        if fingerprint != 'b1:94:6a:c9:24:92:d2:34:7c:62:35:b4:d2:61:11:84':
            return defer.fail(error.ConchError('bad key'))
            return defer.succeed(1)

    def connectionSecure(self):
        self.requestService(ClientUserAuth('user', ClientConnection()))

See how easy it is? SSHClientTransport handles the negotiation of encryption and the verification of keys for you. The one security element that you as a client writer need to implement is verifyHostKey() . This method is called with two strings: the public key sent by the server and its fingerprint. You should verify the host key the server sends, either by checking against a hard-coded value as in the example, or by asking the user. verifyHostKey returns a twisted.internet.defer.Deferred which gets a callback if the host key is valid, or an errback if it is not. Note that in the above, replace ‘user’ with the username you’re attempting to ssh with, for instance a call to os.getlogin() for the current user.

The second method you need to implement is connectionSecure() . It is called when the encryption is set up and other services can be run. The example requests that the ClientUserAuth service be started. This service will be discussed next.

The Authorization Client

from twisted.conch.ssh import keys, userauth

# these are the public/private keys from test_conch

publicKey = 'ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAGEArzJx8OYOnJmzf4tfBEvLi8DVPrJ3\

privateKey = """-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----"""

class ClientUserAuth(userauth.SSHUserAuthClient):

    def getPassword(self, prompt = None):
        # this says we won't do password authentication

    def getPublicKey(self):
        return keys.Key.fromString(data = publicKey).blob()

    def getPrivateKey(self):
        return defer.succeed(keys.Key.fromString(data = privateKey).keyObject)

Again, fairly simple. The SSHUserAuthClient takes care of most of the work, but the actual authentication data needs to be supplied. getPassword() asks for a password, getPublicKey() and getPrivateKey() get public and private keys, respectively. getPassword() returns a Deferred that is called back with the password to use.

getPublicKey() returns the SSH key data for the public key to use. twisted.conch.ssh.keys.Key.fromString() will take a key in OpenSSH, LSH or any supported format, as a string, and generate a new twisted.conch.ssh.keys.Key. Alternatively, keys.Key.fromFile() can be used instead, which will take the filename of a key in the supported format, and and generate a new twisted.conch.ssh.keys.Key.

getPrivateKey() returns a Deferred which is called back with the private twisted.conch.ssh.keys.Key.

getPassword() and getPrivateKey() return Deferreds because they may need to ask the user for input.

Once the authentication is complete, SSHUserAuthClient takes care of starting the SSHConnection object given to it. Next, we’ll look at how to use the SSHConnection.

The Connection

from twisted.conch.ssh import connection

class ClientConnection(connection.SSHConnection):

    def serviceStarted(self):
        self.openChannel(CatChannel(conn = self))

SSHConnection is the easiest, as it’s only responsible for starting the channels. It has other methods, those will be examined when we look at SSHChannel .

The Channel

from twisted.conch.ssh import channel, common

class CatChannel(channel.SSHChannel):

    name = 'session'

    def channelOpen(self, data):
        d = self.conn.sendRequest(self, 'exec', common.NS('cat'),
                                  wantReply = 1)
        self.catData = ''

    def _cbSendRequest(self, ignored):
        self.write('This data will be echoed back to us by "cat."\r\n')

    def dataReceived(self, data):
        self.catData += data

    def closed(self):
        print('We got this from "cat":', self.catData)

Now that we’ve spent all this time getting the server and client connected, here is where that work pays off. SSHChannel is the interface between you and the other side. This particular channel opens a session and plays with the ‘cat’ program, but your channel can implement anything, so long as the server supports it.

The channelOpen() method is where everything gets started. It gets passed a chunk of data; however, this chunk is usually nothing and can be ignored. Our channelOpen() initializes our channel, and sends a request to the other side, using the sendRequest() method of the SSHConnection object. Requests are used to send events to the other side. We pass the method self so that it knows to send the request for this channel. The 2nd argument of ‘exec’ tells the server that we want to execute a command. The third argument is the data that accompanies the request. common.NS encodes the data as a length-prefixed string, which is how the server expects the data. We also say that we want a reply saying that the process has a been started. sendRequest() then returns a Deferred which we add a callback for.

Once the callback fires, we send the data. SSHChannel supports the twisted.internet.interfaces.ITransport interface, so it can be given to Protocols to run them over the secure connection. In our case, we just write the data directly. sendEOF() does not follow the interface, but Conch uses it to tell the other side that we will write no more data. loseConnection() shuts down our side of the connection, but we will still receive data through dataReceived() . The closed() method is called when both sides of the connection are closed, and we use it to display the data we received (which should be the same as the data we sent.)

Finally, let’s actually invoke the code we’ve set up.

The main() function

from twisted.internet import protocol, reactor

def main():
    factory = protocol.ClientFactory()
    factory.protocol = ClientTransport
    reactor.connectTCP('localhost', 22, factory)

if __name__ == "__main__":

We call connectTCP() to connect to localhost, port 22 (the standard port for ssh), and pass it an instance of twisted.internet.protocol.ClientFactory . This instance has the attribute protocol set to our earlier ClientTransport class. Note that the protocol attribute is set to the class ClientTransport , not an instance of ClientTransport ! When the connectTCP call completes, the protocol will be called to create a ClientTransport() object - this then invokes all our previous work.

It’s worth noting that in the example main() routine, the reactor.run() call never returns. If you want to make the program exit, call reactor.stop() in the earlier closed() method.

If you wish to observe the interactions in more detail, adding a call to log.startLogging(sys.stdout, setStdout=0) before the reactor.run() call will send all logging to stdout.