Sbrsh Readme

Version 1.3.25

1. General Information

Scratchbox Remote Shell is an rsh/ssh-like utility for Linux that supports terminal emulation, automated mounting of network shares, chroot, etc.

2. Client Usage

Executing remote command:

sbrsh [-c|--config <path>] [-d|--directory <dir>] <target> [<command> [<args>]]

Unmounting all filesystems of a TARGET (see Client Config):

sbrsh [-c|--config <path>] --umount-all <target>

--config specifies the absolute path to the user's configuration file (default is "$HOME/.sbrsh")
--directory the user's current directory at the target device (default is "/")
target symbolic name of the target configuration (see Client Config)
command name of the command to be executed (may be looked up from PATH); if command is not specified, the user's login shell at the remote host is executed
args zero or more command line arguments for the command


3. Daemon Usage

sbrshd [-p|--port <port>] [-d|--debug <path>] [-m|--mount-bin <path>] [-u|--umount-bin <path>] [-t|--mount-tab <path>] [-b|--bind-opt <options>] [-e|--mount-expiration <minutes>] [-s|--shells <path>] [-S|--shell-list <paths>]

--port sets a custom port number (default is 1202)
--debug enables debugging to a log file
--mount-bin specifies the mount binary path (default is "/bin/mount")
--umount-bin specifies the umount binary path (default is "/bin/umount")
--mount-tab specifies the mount table path (default is "/etc/mtab")
--bind-opt specifies the option used when binding a path to a mount point (default is "--bind", or "-obind" if mount binary is Busybox)
--mount-expiration specifies the number of minutes to wait before expiring unused mount points (default is 60)
--shells specifies the path to a file that lists all valid login shells (default is "/etc/shells")
--shell-list specifies a colon-separated list of valid login shells; "/etc/shells" is not read if this is specified


--shells and --shell-list shouldn't be defined at the same time.

The pid of the daemon process is printed to stdout. The command exits immediately.

The debug log can be opened and closed at run-time by sending the daemon process the SIGUSR1 (open log) and SIGUSR2 (close log) signals. If the debug log was not opened at startup with the --debug option, the debug log will be written to "/tmp/sbrshd-<port>.log" (where <port> is the value of the --port option).

4. Client Config

The client configuration file lists all known TARGETs (see Client Usage). The first line of a TARGET block must not contain whitespaces before the name of the TARGET. The subsequent lines must be indented. # is a line end comment character. The root path of the command is $HOME/IP-TARGET.

The layout of the first line:

<target> [<username>@]<ip>[:<port>] <password>

The subsequent lines define the mounts needed by the TARGET (TYPE is either "nfs" or "bind"):

<type> <share/path> <point> [<nfs options>]

Here's an example configuration:

ARM john@172.16.6.76 killr0y nfs 1.2.3.4:/playground / rw,nolock bind /dev /dev bind /proc /proc bind /var/tmp /tmp

5. Daemon Config

The daemon configuration file lists all known client IPs and passwords. Each user has her own .sbrshd file in her home directory. # is a line end comment character.

The layout is:

<ip> <password>

6. Environment Variables

The command execution environment at the target device can be controlled via a few environment variables.

"SBRSH_ENV_" prefix will be stripped from all variables having one. If a corresponding variable without the prefix exists, it will be overridden. If the variable's value is "(UNSET)", the corresponding variable will be removed from environment. For example the dynamic linker can be controlled this way (via the LD_* variables) without affecting the sbrsh client itself.

The resource limits can be set using variables with the "SBRSH_RLIMIT_" prefix. The value can be either an integer or "unlimited". The supported setting are:

SBRSH_RLIMIT_CPU CPU time in seconds
SBRSH_RLIMIT_FSIZE max filesize
SBRSH_RLIMIT_DATA max data size
SBRSH_RLIMIT_STACK max stack size
SBRSH_RLIMIT_CORE max core file size
SBRSH_RLIMIT_RSS max resident set size
SBRSH_RLIMIT_NPROC max number of processes
SBRSH_RLIMIT_NOFILE max number of open files
SBRSH_RLIMIT_MEMLOCK max locked-in-memory address space
SBRSH_RLIMIT_AS address space (virtual memory) limit