SSH library for Java

Update: The GSOC project and the code there isn't active, but this is: https://github.com/hierynomus/sshj

hierynomus took over as maintainer since early 2015. Here is the older, no longer maintained, Github link:

https://github.com/shikhar/sshj

---

There was a GSOC project:

http://code.google.com/p/commons-net-ssh/

Code quality seem to be better than JSch, which, while a complete and working implementation, lacks documentation. Project page spots an upcoming beta release, last commit to the repository was mid-august.

Compare the APIs:

http://code.google.com/p/commons-net-ssh/

    SSHClient ssh = new SSHClient();
    //ssh.useCompression(); 
    ssh.loadKnownHosts();
    ssh.connect("localhost");
    try {
        ssh.authPublickey(System.getProperty("user.name"));
        new SCPDownloadClient(ssh).copy("ten", "/tmp");
    } finally {
        ssh.disconnect();
    }

http://www.jcraft.com/jsch/

Session session = null;
Channel channel = null;

try {

JSch jsch = new JSch();
session = jsch.getSession(username, host, 22);
java.util.Properties config = new java.util.Properties();
config.put("StrictHostKeyChecking", "no");
session.setConfig(config);
session.setPassword(password);
session.connect();

// exec 'scp -f rfile' remotely
String command = "scp -f " + remoteFilename;
channel = session.openChannel("exec");
((ChannelExec) channel).setCommand(command);

// get I/O streams for remote scp
OutputStream out = channel.getOutputStream();
InputStream in = channel.getInputStream();

channel.connect();

byte[] buf = new byte[1024];

// send '\0'
buf[0] = 0;
out.write(buf, 0, 1);
out.flush();

while (true) {
    int c = checkAck(in);
    if (c != 'C') {
        break;
    }

    // read '0644 '
    in.read(buf, 0, 5);

    long filesize = 0L;
    while (true) {
        if (in.read(buf, 0, 1) < 0) {
            // error
            break;
        }
        if (buf[0] == ' ') {
            break;
        }
        filesize = filesize * 10L + (long) (buf[0] - '0');
    }

    String file = null;
    for (int i = 0;; i++) {
        in.read(buf, i, 1);
        if (buf[i] == (byte) 0x0a) {
            file = new String(buf, 0, i);
            break;
        }
    }

    // send '\0'
    buf[0] = 0;
    out.write(buf, 0, 1);
    out.flush();

    // read a content of lfile
    FileOutputStream fos = null;

    fos = new FileOutputStream(localFilename);
    int foo;
    while (true) {
        if (buf.length < filesize) {
            foo = buf.length;
        } else {
            foo = (int) filesize;
        }
        foo = in.read(buf, 0, foo);
        if (foo < 0) {
            // error
            break;
        }
        fos.write(buf, 0, foo);
        filesize -= foo;
        if (filesize == 0L) {
            break;
        }
    }
    fos.close();
    fos = null;

    if (checkAck(in) != 0) {
        System.exit(0);
    }

    // send '\0'
    buf[0] = 0;
    out.write(buf, 0, 1);
    out.flush();

    channel.disconnect();
    session.disconnect();
}

} catch (JSchException jsche) {
    System.err.println(jsche.getLocalizedMessage());
} catch (IOException ioe) {
    System.err.println(ioe.getLocalizedMessage());
} finally {
    channel.disconnect();
    session.disconnect();
}

}

I just discovered sshj, which seems to have a much more concise API than JSCH (but it requires Java 6). The documentation is mostly by examples-in-the-repo at this point, and usually that's enough for me to look elsewhere, but it seems good enough for me to give it a shot on a project I just started.

Take a look at the very recently released SSHD, which is based on the Apache MINA project.

The Java Secure Channel (JSCH) is a very popular library, used by maven, ant and eclipse. It is open source with a BSD style license.