Avahi and ssh - a nice addition

[Brian McKee]

It was pointed out to me that
> ssh is browseable with Nautilus if you've set up Avahi services for
> the machines you want to browse. On each machine (ssh server) you want
> to browse, create a file,  /etc/avahi/services/sftp-ssh.service, the
> last part of which looks something like:
>
> ----------------8<-----------------------
>
> <!-- See avahi.service(5) for more information about this configuration
> file -->
>
> <service-group>
>
>  <name replace-wildcards="yes">sftp-%h</name>
>  <service>
>    <type>_sftp-ssh._tcp</type>
>    <port>22</port>
>  </service>
>
> </service-group>
>
> ----------------->8--------------------------
>
> and restart the avahi-daemon. Then when you open 'Network Servers' in
> Nautilus, you'll see the Avahi broadcast ssh/sftp host.
>
> This requires that you have the full avahi set: it's such a long time
> since I set it up, but IIRC, as long as you're using ssh-add or the new
> gnome stuff on top that with keyring, once it's set up, that's it. It's
> almost as useful as being able to "scp foo:/tmp/bar.txt /tmp/" at the
> shell prompt.


I have gone ahead and inserted two service files - one as above and a second
one called just ssh.service referring to just the ssh service.

I didn't have to restart avahi, it picked up on the changes as soon as I made
them (looking at /var/log/syslog)

It works great!  I've got a debian testing box, a hardy heron box and an OSX
laptop (yeah I know, it belongs to work)  The sftp services show up in Bonjour
enabled applications like Cyberduck, as well as in Places -> Network

As far as I can see, this would get rid of the need for NFS or SMB for a lot of
small home LANs, it's a point n click browsable interface, that's secure.

Does anyone know of a Bonjour enabled ssh client for Windows?  Since many
people will have Bonjour on Windows now, courtesy of Apple Software Updates, it
becomes a real cross-platform solution.

Brian