In my ~/.ssh/config, I use ControlMaster in order to reuse SSH connections. Can Ruby's Net::SSH make use of ControlMaster or at least make use of a similar connection-reuse mechanism?

I re-use SSH connections to host.example because establishing a connection to it requires MFA, which becomes a pain when I have days that require me to revisit host.example frequently. But this appears to work only when I execute ssh as a shell command. I'd like a Ruby project that I work in to provide the same functionality.

The Ruby project currently has the following code:

Net::SSH.start("host.example") do |session|
  # ...
end

In my ~/.ssh/config, I use ControlMaster in order to reuse SSH connections. Can Ruby's Net::SSH make use of ControlMaster or at least make use of a similar connection-reuse mechanism?

I re-use SSH connections to host.example because establishing a connection to it requires MFA, which becomes a pain when I have days that require me to revisit host.example frequently. But this appears to work only when I execute ssh as a shell command. I'd like a Ruby project that I work in to provide the same functionality.

The Ruby project currently has the following code:

Net::SSH.start("host.example") do |session|
  # ...
end

• ruby
• ssh

• You can look at how start yields a connection and maybe utilize that as a jumping off point for a "reusable" connection. – engineersmnky Commented 2 days ago
• Thanks. Alas. I want to re-use the connection across multiple executions of the ruby tool at any given time during the day. – Jellicle Commented yesterday

1 Answer 1

If you are using a single process, you can store the connection and reuse it (you may want to have a look at sshkit connection pooling)

If you want to reuse the same connection in several ruby processes, it is more complex because ControlMaster is not supported : https://net-ssh.github.io/net-ssh/classes/Net/SSH/Config.html.

You can probably manage to use system ssh client with a proxy command : https://net-ssh.github.io/ssh/v2/api/classes/Net/SSH/Proxy/Command.html