FOBshippingpoint/shittp: Bring your dotfiles to remote machine via SSH

Bring your dotfiles to a remote machine via SSH without mess.

Required dependencies: POSIX shell, ssh, tar, base64, mktemp

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOBshippingpoint/shittp/refs/heads/main/install.sh --output install.sh
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

1. Edit your dotfiles in ~/.config/shittp

   cd ~/.config/shittp 
   echo 'aloha() Tell us your thoughts in comments!' >> .profile
   $EDITOR .vimrc
   $EDITOR .tmux.conf

2. Login to remote host with SSH:

   shittp john@other.machine
   john$ aloha  # output: hello
   john$ vim    # alias equal to "vim -u $SHITTP_HOME/.vimrc"
   john$ tmux   # alias equal to "tmux -L shittp -f $SHITTP_HOME/.tmux.conf"

   Or Docker container:

   docker run -it alpine /bin/sh -c "$(shittp print)"
   $ aloha    # output: hello

1. Pack: create a tarball of your dotfiles and pipes to base64 string.
2. Transport: passing the base64 string and setup script as a SSH remote command.
3. Unpack: on the remote, decodes base64 string and extracts to temp directory.
4. Init: sources setup script and start an interactive shell.
5. Cleanup: remove temp directory once disconnect.

The original idea comes from kyrat, which uses gzip/gunzip and bash. shittp uses tar and POSIX shell.

shittp [options]... [command] [ssh_options]... destination [-- ssh_command]

Basic SSH Login

Pass SSH options as is

shittp -oStrictHostKeyChecking=no john@example.com

Execute Remote Function

shittp john@example.com -- foo bar
shittp -oRemoteCommand='foo bar' john@example.com

Docker Integration

docker run -it alpine /bin/sh -c "$(shittp print)"

Dropbear Client

shittp --client dbclient john@example.com

Large cofig may fail to load due to the OS maximum argument length constraint (ARG_MAX). It is known that 100K file will trigger the error on Alpine Linux.

Command like tar czf - | ssh host tar xzf - should work, however this requires 2-stage SSH connection which means user need to type passphrase twice.

Required dependencies: shellcheck, shellspec, docker

Specify a command. The choices are:

  help                 Show this help
  lint                 Run shellcheck
  unit                 Run unit test with shellspec
  integration          Run integration test script
  webdev               Start web server for home page
  build                Run all check (lint, unit, integration) and build tarball
  clean                Remove shittp tarball from the build step