Edit local (server) files on remote (users) workstation using BBEdit.

Connect to server-host from the BBEdit workstation.

workstation$ ssh server-host

Open filename in BBEdit on workstation, using default copy method (sftp).

server-host$ rbbedit filename

Open filename in BBEdit, connecting to workstation as myuser.

server-host$ rbbedit -u myuser filename

Open filename in BBEdit, using scp method.

server-host$ rbbedit -m scp filename

Open filename in BBEdit, using ExpanDrive with volume named expandrive-volume.

server-host$ rbbedit -x expandrive-volume filename

Send SSH public key from server-host to workstation.

server-host$ rbbedit -u myuser -k send

Get SSH public key from workstation.

server-host$ rbbedit -u myuser -k get

• sshd must be enabled, and if needed, with firewall and port forwarding configured to allow access to BBEdit workstation
• BBEdit command line utilities
• SSH keys for user account (to avoid entering password repeatedly)

• sh
• ssh
• common unix utilities (such as basename, dirname, curl)
• SSH keys for user account (to avoid entering password repeatedly)

• Automatic installation with:
  • curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cngarrison/rbbedit/master/install.sh | bash
• Or install manually from GitHub:
  • wget https://github.com/cngarrison/rbbedit/raw/master/rbbedit
  • chmod 755 rbbedit
  • Copy rbbedit somewhere in PATH
  • cp rbbedit /usr/local/bin/
• Or clone from GitHub:
  • git clone https://github.com/cngarrison/rbbedit.git
  • cd rbbedit
  • ./install.sh
• Create SSH key pair for user account (unless already done)
  • ssh-keygen

• Enable SSH (remote login)
• Configure firewall and port forwarding to allow SSH connections
• Copy SSH public key from server(s) to .ssh/authorized_keys (keys can be copied with the -k option)

• -U username: server-host/SFTP user; specify username to use in hostname argument for SFTP command - will default to $USER
• -H hostname: server-host/SFTP host; specify hostname or IP address - will default to $HOSTNAME
• -u username: workstation/SSH user; specify username to use in hostname argument for SSH command
• -h hostname: workstation/SSH host; specify hostname or IP address, optionally prefix with USER@, eg. [email protected]
• -p port: workstation/SSH port; connect to SSH using port other than 22
• -m copy-method: sftp | ftp | expan | scp | rsync - method used to copy files between hosts
• -x expandrive-volume: volume name as configured in drives list of ExpanDrive, implies -m expan
• -k copy-direction: get | send - direction to copy the SSH key
• -i identity-file: path to identity file if ssh-copy-id can't find default public key file
• -y understood: confirmation that you understand the implication of the 'copy SSH public key' command (not required in current version)
• -b /path/to/bbedit: path to bbedit on the workstation
• -v: verbose
• -w: Enable BBEdit wait mode (default)
• -W: Disable BBEdit wait mode (only sftp, ftp & expan methods)
• -+: self-update
• -?: help usage

All options specified in the users ~/.rbbedit file will be used as defaults. Options specified on the command line will override user defaults.

The following options can be set in ~/.rbbedit file. These are the script default values.

host_sftp_user=""
host_sftp_host=""

bbedit_ssh_user=""
bbedit_ssh_host=""
bbedit_ssh_port=""
	
copy_method="sftp" # scp | expan | rsync | sftp | ftp
expan_volume=""

bbedit_prog="/usr/local/bin/bbedit"
bbedit_wait_args=" --wait --resume"
bbedit_wait="$bbedit_wait_args"

local_ssh_copy_id_command="ssh-copy-id"
local_key_identity=""
bbedit_ssh_copy_id_command="/usr/local/bin/ssh-copy-id"
bbedit_key_identity=""
yes_agree=""

verbose=0

Set default for username on BBEdit workstation:

echo 'bbedit_ssh_user="<workstation-username"' >> ~/.rbbedit

Set default copy method to 'ftp':

echo 'copy_method="ftp"' >> ~/.rbbedit

Set path for bbedit:

echo 'bbedit_prog="/usr/bin/bbedit"' >> ~/.rbbedit

Disable the --wait option for bbedit:

echo 'bbedit_wait=""' >> ~/.rbbedit

Use rbbedit as your EDITOR, eg:

export EDITOR="rbbedit -w"

Some programs that use EDITOR don't expect multiple arguments (& editing fails). The solutions is to create a wrapper script and use that for EDITOR.

cat << 'EOF' > wait_rbbedit
#!/bin/sh
rbbedit -w "$@"
EOF

chmod +x wait_rbbedit
mv wait_rbbedit /usr/local/bin/wait_rbbedit

export EDITOR="wait_rbbedit"

The default copy method is 'sftp'. The 'sftp' method will construct an sftp url and use bbedit to open the file using BBEdit's built-in SFTP functionality.

The 'ftp' copy method is almost identical to the 'sftp' method. The difference is that the home directory will be stripped from the filename, under the assumption that the FTP server is chrooting connections. So a relative path for the filename is used, if the first part of the path matches $HOME. You can disable the relative path behaviour by setting ftp_absolute=1 in your ~/.rbbedit file.

The 'scp' method uses scp to copy each file to edit to the user's TMPDIR, then opens the file using bbedit. Once the file closes (editing is finished) then scp is used to copy file back to the server.

The 'rsync' method is identical to 'scp' except that rsync is used to copy the file each direction.

The 'expan' method will instruct ExpanDrive on the workstation to mount expandrive-volume, and then opens the file using bbedit. The script can't get response indicating whether ExpanDrive has finished mounting the volume successfully, other than checking path exists, so we just sleep for 3 seconds and hope for the best.

All the commands sent from server to the workstation use ssh.

Multiple files can be specified at once. Only one file will opened/edited at a time.

Only files can be specified for scp and rsync methods, while the sftp, ftp and expan methods will also open directories.

WARNING: Be very sure you understand the implications of copying SSH public keys between hosts. You could easily, and unitentionally, allow user access between hosts for more than just editing files with BBEdit. This key copy feature has been added as a convenience for the ssh-copy-id command. Use it only if you understand what is happening.

The key copy feature depends on the ssh-copy-id command. It is not installed by default on OSX systems. I suggest installing the ssh-copy-id-for-OSX version from GitHub:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/beautifulcode/ssh-copy-id-for-OSX/master/install.sh | sh

There is also a homebrew version; it has not been tested with rbbedit.

brew install ssh-copy-id

For easiest use of rbbedit, it's best to have the public SSH key on both the BBEdit workstation and the server host. (Important: never share or copy your private SSH key.) Passing the -k command option with either get or send will transfer the SSH public key between hosts. Note, put works as an alias for send.

The send option will transfer the server host SSH public key to the BBEdit workstation. The get option will transfer the BBEdit workstation SSH public key to the current user account on the server host. Both options will attempt to use ssh-copy-id to tranfer the public key. If the get option fails with ssh-copy-id, then it will fallback to a simple cat $bbedit_key_identity >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys method.

If the SSH identity file containing the public key cannot be found, you can specify which file to use with the -i option. Default values can also be specified in ~/.rbbedit with either local_key_identity or bbedit_key_identity options. In addition, you can specify defaults for the path to the ssh-copy-id executable on each host using the bbedit_ssh_copy_id_command or local_ssh_copy_id_command options.

[The -y option is not required in current version of rbbedit.] You must specify -y understood on the command line to show your understanding of the implications of copying SSH public keys. You can also set yes_agree="understood" in the ~/.rbbedit file.

The contents of ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on both BBEdit workstation and server host should be checked after running either the get or send key copy option.

Use the -+ option to update rbbedit using the latest version from GitHub. The update is done by downloading the install.sh script and running it.

No error checking is done for any of the ssh commands (or 'copy' commands).

To allow copying files back to server for the 'scp' and 'rsync' methods, the bbedit --wait option must be specified.

Only real (existing) files can be edited; not text passed via STDIN.

There is no simple/reliable way to determine whether ExpanDrive has finished mounting the remote volume, or whether there was an error. Existence of volume's path could be checked; currently the script just sleeps for 3 seconds before trying to open the file.

Copying SSH public keys between hosts should make people uncomfortable. This script only uses commonly accepted methods for copying public keys, so the author doesn't believe the script is adding additional security concerns. But neither does the author believe that using this script to simplify copying SSH public keys should absolve the user from understandind the implications of copying SSH public keys.

rbbedit @GitHub

The MIT License (MIT)