How to install sshpass on Mac?

Question

I would like to automate ssh login from my Mac.

It does have a simple solution:

sshpass -p my_password ssh m_username@hostname

But my problem is installing sshpass on my Mac.

Duclos

Why bother with sshpass when you can use ssh keypairs? More secure and dosn't expose password in the process table. – Feeley

On OSX run the command ssh-keygen -b 2048. It will generate a keypair and store them in ~/.ssh. as id_rsa (private key) and id_rsa.pub (public key). Copy id_rsa.pub to linux in the directory ~/.ssh/ and name the file authorized_keys. From here on when you connect to linux you will not need a password. The private/public keypair will be used. – Feeley

Just for someone else who might be trying to follow @Feeley very helpful advice: 1) generate the id_rsa file on your local machine and 2) scp the id_rsa.pub to the server's corresponding folder as suggested and 3) rename the id_ras.pub file on the server. – Freeboot

The above answers do NOT answer OP's question. Good alternative, but not explaining how to install sshpass on Mac. There are cases where you cannot copy to the remote system (mine is embedded read only filesystem). So, something like sshpass is a better means to get into the remote. – Straus

While it's good to comment to inform risks, it is unhelpful to withhold direct answers on assumption the user can simply install SSH keys. Try dealing with embedded OS whose root-directory is read-only. Your choices then are continually typing passwords, playing hunt-the-homebrew-tap game, or writing Expect. – Stonework

By making users go install this from "random GH repos" the Homebrew developers are actively pushing users toward greater risk since those third-party repos have no eyes on them. I too am targeting a read-only embedded Linux. – Stonework

This answer is still relevant in 2021 https://mcmap.net/q/134674/-how-to-install-sshpass-on-mac – Funnelform

It seems with "normal" openssh you can pass in a password these days: superuser.com/a/1703039/39364 so you may not need sshpass :) – Vladamir

Instead of using scp, you can copy RSA public key to the server like so: ssh-copy-id remoteuser@remotehostname – Ratcliff

I agree with @ScottPrive and in fact my answer uses MacPorts instead of relying on random Github repositories or random non-popular websites that claim to be dedicated to open source software. – Manicotti

@Kubuntuer82 - TY. I don't know what's worse here, the lack of understanding what "read only embedded filesystem" means. Or homebrew's devs who do understand it, but actively don't care about the use case. – Stonework

Is it safe to use SSHPASS ? it doesn't guarantee that it does not share server user host and password ? – Federation

Answer 1

There are instructions on how to install sshpass here:

https://gist.github.com/arunoda/7790979

For Mac you will need to install xcode and command line tools then use the unofficial Homewbrew command:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kadwanev/bigboybrew/master/Library/Formula/sshpass.rb > sshpass.rb && brew install sshpass.rb && rm sshpass.rb

Dial

In 2020 I found this as the best answer – Quadragesima

Unfortunately, that didn't work for me Error: Calling Non-checksummed download of sshpass formula file from an arbitrary URL is disabled! Use 'brew extract' or 'brew create' and 'brew tap-new' to create a formula file in a tap on GitHub instead. – Eolic

Update for 2021: curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kadwanev/bigboybrew/master/Library/Formula/sshpass.rb > sshpass.rb && brew install sshpass.rb && rm sshpass.rb – Cabinet

Brew has taps now, see some of the other answers... – Vladamir

I did not need Xcode, the Command-Line Tools were enough. – Tadich

Answer 2

Update 2022: Unfortunately, Aleks Hudochenkov is no longer updating his repo. There are a bunch of other repos on GitHub that purport to contain a Homebrew recipe for sshpass. It's up to you which of them (if any) to trust.

Some years have passed and there is now a proper Homebrew Tap for sshpass, maintained by Aleks Hudochenkov. To install sshpass from this tap, run:

brew install hudochenkov/sshpass/sshpass

Tap source

Neiman

Is the source code somewhere? Using something like sshpass without knowing the code is critical – Nazarite

@muuvmuuv, yes. If you look at the formula in that tap, you will see that it downloads the source from downloads.sourceforge.net/project/sshpass/sshpass/1.06/… and builds it locally. – Neiman

Error: Your CLT does not support macOS 11. I use 11.2. – Alkmaar

Same error as @ikreb, Your CLT does not support macOS 11. On latest version of Big Sur. – Stockman

@Stockman This helps me: sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools and sudo xcode-select --install. – Alkmaar

Works on Catalina with XCode 12.3 on 2021-02-18. – Nawab

This repository has been archived by the owner. It is now read-only. so I can't request bump its version to latest sshpass :( – Vladamir

@Vladamir Ah, that's unfortunate. There are a bunch of repos on GitHub that purport to contain a Homebrew recipe for sshpass. It's up to you which of them (if any) to trust. – Neiman

For what little it's worth, I've forked Aleks' repo above and updated to the latest version of sshpass on sourceforge (1.08). brew install stevenhaddox/sshpass/sshpass – Cletuscleve

looks like sshpass has to support ssh versions to get it working. – Enwomb

Answer 3

Another option in 2020 is this homebrew tap, maintained by esolitos

brew install esolitos/ipa/sshpass

Soonsooner

This is the only answer which literally answers the question. There are concerns with that - a tiny repo could go rogue (and not be noticed right away). But it is an answer. User is advised to exhaust every possible use case first, as there could be other simpler answers (like maybe if you're dealing with a Dropbear host that doesn't store authorized_keys under home directories and that's why your staged public key was rejected, etc) – Stonework

this is work for me on 2022. macbook pro m1 – Dameron

Answer 4

Following worked for me

curl -O -L  https://sourceforge.net/projects/sshpass/files/sshpass/1.06/sshpass-1.06.tar.gz && tar xvzf sshpass-1.06.tar.gz
cd sshpass-1.06/
./configure
sudo make install

Rotter

Just make sure you already have xcode installed. Please google how to do that, here is one of the link (freecodecamp.org/news/install-xcode-command-line-tools) – Monochasium

Add --insecure to curl if you get: SSL certificate problem: certificate has expired – Sharl

Answer 5

Solution provided by lukesUbuntu from github works for me:

Just use brew

$ brew install http://git.io/sshpass.rb

Triplett

note: this is out of date and points to an old version of sshpass – Pumice

@DevisLucato Yes, for the one LF the latest version of sshpass, xcode with sshpass src will lead the way. sourceforge.net/projects/sshpass Good luck. – Triplett

This is now out of date - the comment here: https://mcmap.net/q/134674/-how-to-install-sshpass-on-mac is more current. Thanks @Neiman – Wrist

Error: Non-checksummed download of sshpass formula file from an arbitrary URL is unsupported! brew extract` or brew create and brew tap-new to create a formula file in a tap on GitHub instead.` – Vladamir

Answer 6

I found that most of the answers listed here are out of date. To install the latest, I ran this and downloaded directly from sourceforge.net, based on other answers here.

curl -L https://sourceforge.net/projects/sshpass/files/latest/download -o sshpass.tar.gz && tar xvzf sshpass.tar.gz
cd sshpass-*
./configure
sudo make install

Sleuthhound

configure: error: in /Users/ME/sshpass-1.08: configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables See config.log for more details – Infest

This is better than other answers that use a specific and likely outdated version – Cold

Answer 7

Please follow the steps below to install sshpass in mac.

curl -O -L https://fossies.org/linux/privat/sshpass-1.06.tar.gz && tar xvzf sshpass-1.06.tar.gz

cd sshpass-1.06

./configure

sudo make install

Spanos

Needs to be updated to /linux/privat/sshpass-1.09.tar.gz – Impeccant

Answer 8

Short answer

To avoid having to rely on unknown Github repositories (directly or via Homebrew taps) just use MacPorts :)

Just install MacPorts and then type

sudo port install sshpass  

Details / Long answer

The idea is to install sshpass via MacPorts instead of Homebrew.

You can have both Homebrew and MacPorts on the same machine, but be careful as some packages are available on both sources, and in that case you should be consistent in order to avoid conflicts.

In such cases, normally I give priority to Homebrew, but sshpass won't be provided by them, as they explicitly say.

In fact, if you type:

brew install sshpass

Then the output will also include this sentence:

We won't add sshpass because it makes it too easy for novice SSH users to ruin SSH's security.

Then in this case MacPorts is the only choice (if you really want to use sshpass).

Some links

Link to the MacPorts project
How to install MacPorts
Link to the sshpass Port on MacPorts

Manicotti

Thank you! I wasn't even aware macports was still around. :-) This entire page is a shining example to how security can be made WORSE through blind, inflexible opinion and perspective. All these embedded Linux users had to seek lesser-known, fewer-eyeballs repos due to Homebrew's activist stance. – Stonework

Yes @ScottPrive you are totally right: perhaps they could put plenty of warnings, or make the package more difficult to install (similarly to what Chrome does when you visit websites with invalid SSL certificates, forcing you to type 'thisisunsafe' on the screen), but they should not completely forbid this, because the consequences will be exactly the ones you said. – Manicotti

Answer 9

I just followed the instructions from this article and it helped,

curl -O -L http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/sshpass/sshpass/1.05/sshpass-1.05.tar.gz && tar xvzf sshpass-1.05.tar.gz

//This creates a directory sshpass-1.05

cd sshpass-1.05
./configure
make
sudo make install

Bovine

Thanks, the linked article provides more context – Cold

Answer 10

For the simple reason:

Andy-B-MacBook:~ l.admin$ brew install sshpass
Error: No available formula with the name "sshpass"
We won't add sshpass because it makes it too easy for novice SSH users to
ruin SSH's security.

Thus, the answer to do the curl / configure / install worked great for me on Mac.

Bernal

Answer 11

Just a slight update from the previous answer

curl -O -L  https://fossies.org/linux/privat/sshpass-1.09.tar.gz && tar xvzf sshpass-1.09.tar.gz
cd sshpass-1.09/
./configure
sudo make install

This Worked as on OCT 2021

Spherical

Answer 12

Aargh, the problem with the outdated links. Simply go to https://sourceforge.net/projects/sshpass/ Download latest version and then tar xvzf it and finally cd to the dir where it got unpackedand install with: ./configure make sudo make install I suppose this will also work on every OS with supported C sdk installed...

Mcmillian