Ifyou manage many servers, switches, and routers, you probably often need to issue the same commands to multiple machines. SecureCRT can help make this time-consuming task easier by allowing you to group the sessions in one window and then broadcast commands to all the sessions at once using the Command window.
The first step is connecting the sessions that will take a common set of commands. The easiest way to connect a set of sessions all at once is to organize your sessions in folders and then connect using the Connect dialog. Simply select a folder and click on the Connect button to launch all the sessions in that folder.
An alternate method allows you to quickly group active sessions so that you can issue commands to them. If you have a subset of active sessions that you want to broadcast commands to, you can use SecureCRT draggable tabs to group them in one window.
First, choose a tab, and then right click on the tab and select Send to New Window. SecureCRT sends the tab to a separate window. Then you can drag as many SecureCRT session tabs as you need into the new window.
Another way to exclude sessions from receiving commands broadcast from the Command window is to lock them. Commands are not sent to locked sessions, which makes it possible to send commands to a subset of the tabbed sessions. Sessions can be locked from the File menu or the tab menu.
Broadcasting commands uses the SecureCRT Command window, which appears underneath the session window. This allows you to type in commands that are only sent to the remote when you press the ENTER key (when not in the Command window, each character is sent to the remote as soon as you type it). You can prepare multiple lines of commands in the Command window by using the CTRL+ENTER key combination.
To open the Command window, select Command window on the View menu. Once all your sessions are started as tabs, right-click in the Command window and choose Send Commands to All Sessions. With this option enabled, each command entered into the Command window is sent to every tab in the SecureCRT window.
You can save commands in the Command window by enabling the Command window history in the Global Options dialog. In the Terminal / Advanced category, enter into the Command window history option the number of recently used Command window commands that you want SecureCRT to remember (to disable the Command window history, enter a zero (0) in this entry box). In your Command window, you can cycle through these commands using your UP and DOWN arrow keys.
When you are done broadcasting commands, you may want to restore your session tabs or windows to their previous state. You can drag tabs between windows to do this. When the last tab is dragged into the target window, the second window disappears.
In SecureCRT version 7.0 and later, commands can also be broadcast to tiled sessions, which has the added benefit of being able to see the resulting output from the command in all the sessions at the same time.
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Before using public-key authentication, the public/private key pair files must be created, with a copy of the public-key file being uploaded to a specific location on the server. The public and private keys are generated with a key generation utility. While the private and public keys within a key pair are related, a private key cannot be derived by someone who only possesses the corresponding public key.
Public-key authentication is only successful when the client proves that it possesses the "secret" private key linked to the public-key file that the server is configured to use. Typically the private-key file on the client's machine is protected by a "passphrase", so even if the private-key file is stolen, an attacker must still know the passphrase in order to use it. In contrast with the "password" authentication method where the password is transmitted between the client and the server during the authentication process, the private key contents are not transmitted between the client and the server. Since the private key is never transmitted over the connection, the public-key authentication method is considered to be more secure than the password authentication method. Each key is usually between 1024 and 2048 bits in length. Starting with SecureCRT and SecureFX 7.3 and newer, keys larger than 2048 are available if needed. The following is an example of a key generated by SecureCRT.
Successful public-key authentication requires: (1) generating a key pair, (2) uploading the public key to the Secure Shell server, and (3) configuring the client to use the public-key authentication method. SecureCRT and SecureFX provide utilities to generate keys and automatically place a copy of the public key on a VShell server. Public-key authentication between a VanDyke Software client application and a non-VShell server such as OpenSSH requires generation of a public/private key pair and placing the public-key file on the server in the right location and in a format supported by the Secure Shell server.
You first choose the type of key (RSA, Ed25519, ECDSA, or DSA) and the passphrase that is used to protect access to your private key. If using an RSA key type and SecureCRT or SecureFX 7.3 or newer, you can then select a key length between 512 and 16,384 bits (SecureCRT and SecureFX versions 7.2 and earlier are limited to key lengths between 512 and 2048 bits). In many organizations, users are given guidelines for these settings. The time required to generate a key increases with the key length, and may be several minutes depending on processor speed.
You will have the choice of storing your key in VanDyke Software format (the public key is stored in a file that matches the IETF standard format) or in the OpenSSH format. If you are connecting to an OpenSSH server, you may want to use the OpenSSH format to simplify the process involved with setting up the remote server with your public-key file. If you are connecting to a VShell server, you can use either format since VShell accepts them both.
The public key can be uploaded to a VShell server at the end of the Key Generation wizard process, or at any time later through the Session Options dialog. Use the following steps to upload an existing public-key file:
4. Press the Upload button to place the public key on the Secure Shell server.* Note that you can also create keys from this dialog with the Create Identity File... button. This is also where you can change the passphrase for your key.
*Note that the upload instructions apply only to servers like VanDyke Software's VShell that implement the Secure Shell Public Key Subsystem (RFC 4819). Although there may be server implementations that support the public-key subsystem, those connecting to servers that aren't VShell will typically need to use manual methods to place their public-key files on the server to meet the server's requirements.
SecureCRT is a terminal emulation application that uses a tabbed interface. Multiple sessions are presented as a single window with multiple tabs. The window title is session name" - SecureCRT" so it changes with each tab. Perfect.
The problem comes when it prompts for a password with a dialog box. At that point the window title detected by Keepass is that of the dialog box, "Keyboard Interactive Authentication". This makes selecting an autotype entry problematic. In these cases is there any way to detect the dialog box parent window title?
I have gotten around the issue by checking the SecureCRT options to "Display logon promtps in the terminal window" which eliminates the password dialog box. But I have run into this limitation with other applications and just wondered if there is a workaround or plugin that addresses it.
KeePass cannot determine the parent window title, so you are stuck with a work around.
You could add a target window on the Auto-Type tab, with "keyboard interactive Authentication" as the title. Then KeePass will pop up all entries for you to choose.
From one window, several administrative tools support connections to target systems. You can view multiple connections in separate tabs (like in SecureCRT) or like branches in tree-view navigation pane (like in Microsoft SQL Management Studio).
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