# Opening an SSH terminal based on Ansible inventory

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/opening-an-ssh-terminal-based-on-ansible-inventory/15130>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [May 1, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/opening-an-ssh-terminal-based-on-ansible-inventory/15130 "2014-05-01T15:09:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mathieu\_Martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mathieu\_Martin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mathieu_Martin)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/opening-an-ssh-terminal-based-on-ansible-inventory/15130/1 "2014-05-01T15:09:07Z")

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Hey all,

Is there an Ansible plugin that would allow me to open a plain old SSH terminal to one of the nodes in my Ansible inventory? I’d rather manage only one inventory (Ansible’s) than two (Ansible + ssh config).

Please don’t tell me that logging in is the “wrong way”. I understand where that would be coming from, and I’m not looking to have that discussion 😉

Thanks!

Mat

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**Author:** ![drybjed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drybjed](https://forum.ansible.com/u/drybjed)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/opening-an-ssh-terminal-based-on-ansible-inventory/15130/2 "2014-05-01T15:13:38Z")

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If you don’t want to “double the effort”, you could try using Ansible inventory plugin that uses ~/.ssh/config as it’s source: [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/plugins/inventory/ssh\_config.py](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/plugins/inventory/ssh_config.py)

And interactive shell on your server is definitely a very useful thing while developing your playbook. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/opening-an-ssh-terminal-based-on-ansible-inventory/15130/3 "2014-05-01T21:20:08Z")

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Here’s a related thing:

[https://github.com/pas256/ansible-ec2](https://github.com/pas256/ansible-ec2)

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**Author:** ![Mathieu\_Martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mathieu\_Martin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mathieu_Martin)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/opening-an-ssh-terminal-based-on-ansible-inventory/15130/4 "2014-05-03T02:54:01Z")

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Thank you both!

I’ll see how far I can get with ssh\_config.py.

This is partly about not doubling the effort, indeed. But I also want to be able to jump on any node without too much fuss. So having an up to date SSH config makes sense to me.

Mat