How to save ssh password to vscode?

To setup password-less authentication for ssh on Visual Studio Code, perform the following steps.

These examples assume the following (replace with your actual details)

Host: myhost
Local User: localuser 
Remote User: remoteuser
Remote User Home Dir: remoteuserhome
SSH Port:  22

I'm using a Mac so Windows will be a bit different but the basics are the same

Tell VS Code and your machine in general how you will be connecting to myhost

Edit:

/Users/<localuser>/.ssh/config

Add:

Host <myhost>
  HostName <myhost>
  User <remoteuser>
  Port 22
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  IdentityFile "/Users/<localuser>/.ssh/keys/<myhost>_rsa"

Next generate a public and a private key with something like OpenSSL

ssh-keygen -q -b 2048 -P "" -f /Users/<localuser>/.ssh/keys/<myhost>_rsa -t rsa

This should make two files:

<myhost>_rsa        (private key)
<myhost>_rsa.pub    (public key)

The private key (<myhost>_rsa) can stay in the local .ssh folder

The public key (<myhost>_rsa.pub) needs to be copied to the server (<myhost>)

I did it with FTP but you can do it however you wish but it needs to end up in a similar directory on the server.

ON THE SERVER

There is a file on the server which has a list of public keys inside it.

 <remoteuserhome>/.ssh/authorized_keys

If it exists already, you need to add the contents of <myhost>_rsa.pub to the end of the file.

If it does not exist you can use the <myhost>_rsa.pub and rename it to authorized_keys with permissions of 600.

If everything goes according to plan you should now be able to go into terminal and type

ssh <remoteuser>@<myhost>

and you should be in without a password. The same will now apply in Visual Studio Code.

For those trying to connect through Vscode Remote SSH Extension steps provided at https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/troubleshooting#_ssh-tips)

For Windows(Host) --> Linux(Remote)

1. Create an SSH .pub key in your windows ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
2. Copy the contents of the .pub key (default path C:\Users\username/.ssh/id_rsa.pub)
3. SSH into Remote machine and append the contents of the pub key in authorized keys echo "pub-key" >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

If you don't want to enter your password each time you are connecting to your server, according to vs code documentation you have to:

"Set up SSH key-based authentication to the server so you do not need to enter your password multiple times."

To do this on a Linux system (I did it on Ubuntu 22.04) :

1- Generate a key pair if you haven't already: ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -b 4096. This would generate two files under the names: id_ed25519 and id_ed25519.pub

2- Assuming that the files are saved on the ~/.ssh/ directory, use this command: ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub user@server_ip. You will be prompted to enter your server password. After doing so, you no longer need to enter a password to connect to your server both in the terminal and vs code.

You can use sshpass to save the password:

sshpass -p 'PASSWORD' ssh HOST

where HOST is defined in ~/.ssh/config.

sshpass is not integrated into vscode, but you can write a shell script to wrap around the ssh binary:

#!/bin/sh

for arg in "$@"; do
    if [ "$arg" = "HOST" ]; then
        target_host="HOST"
        break
    fi
done

if [ "$target_host" = "HOST" ]; then
    exec sshpass -p 'PASSWORD' /usr/bin/ssh "$@"
else
    exec /usr/bin/ssh "$@"
fi

Name this script to "ssh" and add its directory to $PATH in .bashrc (or .zshrc on Mac), vscode will use it to establish the ssh connection, without prompting the user to enter the password.

Alternatively, there's also a remote.ssh.path setting to specify the ssh executable.

There are definitely security issues with this method, but it works. ssh keys are safer, but sometimes the server does not support them.

After locally configuring /.ssh/config,

On the local terminal, run:

1. ssh-keygen
2. Keep pressing enter is fine.
3. type $env:USERPROFILE\\.ssh\id_rsa.pub | ssh *ip or username@hostname* "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys"
4. Enter your remote password in the prompt.
5. Then simply run ssh *ip or username@hostname*

You're in!

Windows (local)

SSH Vault for VSCode (no affiliation/can't vouch)

Mac (local)

perhaps combination of:

SSH Config Editor and vscode settings:

remote.SSH.externalSSH_ASKPASS
remote.SSH.path

(will update if successful)

Mac/Linux (remote)

Tailscale SSH

This automates SSH key handling, not password entry

not supported on windows yet