dbclient (1)

dbclient [-Tt] [-p port] [-i id] [-L l:h:r] [-R l:h:r] [-l user] host [command]

dbclient [ args ] [user1]@host1[^port1],[user2]@host2[^port2],...

dbclient is a small SSH client

If compiled with zlib support and if the server supports it, dbclient will always use compression.

-p port

Connect to port on the remote host. Alternatively a port can be specified as hostname^port. Default is 22.

-i idfile

Identity file. Read the identity key from file idfile (multiple allowed). This file is created with dropbearkey(1) or converted from OpenSSH with dropbearconvert(1).

-L [listenaddress]:listenport:host:port

Local port forwarding. Forward the port listenport on the local host through the SSH connection to port port on the host host.

-R [listenaddress]:listenport:host:port

Remote port forwarding. Forward the port listenport on the remote host through the SSH connection to port port on the host host.

-l user

Username. Login as user on the remote host.

-t

Allocate a PTY.

-T

Don't allocate a PTY.

-N

Don't request a remote shell or run any commands. Any command arguments are ignored.

-f

Fork into the background after authentication. A command argument (or -N) is required. This is useful when using password authentication.

-g

Allow non-local hosts to connect to forwarded ports. Applies to -L and -R forwarded ports, though remote connections to -R forwarded ports may be limited by the ssh server.

-y

Always accept hostkeys if they are unknown. If a hostkey mismatch occurs the connection will abort as normal. If specified a second time no host key checking is performed at all, this is usually undesirable.

-A

Forward agent connections to the remote host. dbclient will use any OpenSSH-style agent program if available ($SSH_AUTH_SOCK will be set) for public key authentication. Forwarding is only enabled if -A is specified.

-W windowsize

Specify the per-channel receive window buffer size. Increasing this may improve network performance at the expense of memory use. Use -h to see the default buffer size.

-K timeout_seconds

Ensure that traffic is transmitted at a certain interval in seconds. This is useful for working around firewalls or routers that drop connections after a certain period of inactivity. The trade-off is that a session may be closed if there is a temporary lapse of network connectivity. A setting if 0 disables keepalives. If no response is received for 3 consecutive keepalives the connection will be closed.

-I idle_timeout

Disconnect the session if no traffic is transmitted or received for idle_timeout seconds.

-J proxy_command

Use the standard input/output of the program proxy_command rather than using a normal TCP connection. A hostname should be still be provided, as this is used for comparing saved hostkeys.

-B endhost:endport

"Netcat-alike" mode, where Dropbear will connect to the given host, then create a forwarded connection to endhost. This will then be presented as dbclient's standard input/output.

-c cipherlist

Specify a comma separated list of ciphers to enable. Use -c help to list possibilities.

-m MAClist

Specify a comma separated list of authentication MACs to enable. Use -m help to list possibilities.

-s

The specified command will be requested as a subsystem, used for sftp. Dropbear doesn't implement sftp itself but the OpenSSH sftp client can be used eg sftp -S dbclient user@host

-V

Print the version

Dropbear will also allow multiple "hops" to be specified, separated by commas. In this case a connection will be made to the first host, then a TCP forwarded connection will be made through that to the second host, and so on. Hosts other than the final destination will not see anything other than the encrypted SSH stream. A port for a host can be specified with a hash (eg matt@martello^44 ). This syntax can also be used with scp or rsync (specifying dbclient as the ssh/rsh command). A file can be "bounced" through multiple SSH hops, eg

scp -S dbclient matt@martello,root@wrt,canyons:/tmp/dump .

Note that hostnames are resolved by the prior hop (so "canyons" would be resolved by the host "wrt") in the example above, the same way as other -L TCP forwarded hosts are. Host keys are checked locally based on the given hostname.

Typing a newline followed by the key sequence ~. (tilde, dot) will terminate a connection. The sequence ~^Z (tilde, ctrl-z) will background the connection. This behaviour only applies when a PTY is used.

DROPBEAR_PASSWORD

A password to use for remote authentication can be specified in the environment variable DROPBEAR_PASSWORD. Care should be taken that the password is not exposed to other users on a multi-user system, or stored in accessible files.

SSH_ASKPASS

dbclient can use an external program to request a password from a user. SSH_ASKPASS should be set to the path of a program that will return a password on standard output. This program will only be used if either DISPLAY is set and standard input is not a TTY, or the environment variable SSH_ASKPASS_ALWAYS is set.

Matt Johnston ([email protected]).

Mihnea Stoenescu wrote initial Dropbear client support

Gerrit Pape ([email protected]) wrote this manual page.

dropbear(8), dropbearkey(1)

https://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html