ssh-mcp-pro

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ssh-mcp-pro is a secure Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for SSH automation. It lets MCP-capable clients open SSH sessions, inspect hosts, run guarded commands, manage files, transfer artifacts, create tunnels, and perform idempotent package or service work through policy-controlled tools.

Prerequisites

• Node.js >=22.22.2 or >=24.15.0 or >=26.3.0
• pnpm >=11.0.9
• SSH access to the target hosts
• Docker, only for local integration tests and container image builds

Installation

Install globally with pnpm:

pnpm add --global ssh-mcp-pro
ssh-mcp-pro --version

Run without a global install:

npx ssh-mcp-pro

For pnpm-only environments, use:

pnpm dlx ssh-mcp-pro

Container images are published to GitHub Container Registry for release tags:

docker run --rm ghcr.io/oaslananka/ssh-mcp-pro:1.0.0 --version

Images are published for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 with exact semver and Git tag aliases. Production deployments should prefer the digest-pinned reference recorded by the release workflow. See Docker Usage for the tag policy, digest-pinned examples, and registry verification steps.

Quickstart

Generic stdio MCP config:

{
  "name": "ssh-mcp-pro",
  "command": "ssh-mcp-pro",
  "type": "stdio"
}

VS Code settings style:

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "ssh-mcp-pro": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "ssh-mcp-pro",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop style:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ssh-mcp-pro": {
      "command": "ssh-mcp-pro",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

After registration, start with discovery and a strict host-key policy:

List configured SSH hosts, open a session to bastion.example.com as deploy with hostKeyPolicy=strict, then run os_detect.

Usage

Use ssh-mcp-pro from an MCP client over stdio, or run the HTTP transport for remote-safe connector profiles. Start with read-only discovery tools, inspect the active policy, and create explicit sessions before running remote commands:

List configured SSH hosts, explain the active SSH policy, connect to the selected host, then report its operating system and disk usage.

See examples/README.md for additional workflows and INSTALL.md for client-specific setup.

Configuration

All SSH_MCP_* environment variables parsed by src/config.ts are listed below. Comma-separated settings also accept newline-separated values.

The parser also accepts non-SSH_MCP_* compatibility aliases PORT, KNOWN_HOSTS_PATH, and STRICT_HOST_KEY_CHECKING.

Tool Profiles

full exposes every registered tool, resource, and prompt. Every other profile uses an explicit per-profile allowset. chatgpt and claude currently expose the same baseline connector tools as remote-safe, with empty client-specific extension sets reserved for future additions.

Security Defaults

ssh-mcp-pro starts with strict SSH host-key verification, denies root login, denies raw sudo, blocks destructive commands and filesystem operations unless policy allows them, and refuses non-loopback HTTP startup unless authentication, origins, public HTTPS URL, strict host-key verification, a remote-safe tool profile, and host allowlists are configured. See SECURITY.md for vulnerability reporting and SECURITY_DECISIONS.md for the design rationale behind these defaults.

More Documentation

• INSTALL.md covers full client setup and troubleshooting.
• API reference is generated from the published TypeScript entry points.
• CHANGELOG.md records release history in Keep a Changelog format.
• AGENTS.md describes agent-facing operational guidance.
• examples/README.md contains workflow examples.
• ARCHITECTURE.md explains the major subsystems and ADRs.
• REGISTRY_SUBMISSION.md tracks MCP Registry submission readiness.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, quality gates, commit rules, and pull request expectations.

License

ssh-mcp-pro is available under the MIT License.