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One problem a lot of people seem to have is using the odd SSH client on Chromebooks and in Chrome OS. Chrome OS uses a shell called crosh, which may stand for “Crippled, read only shell”. Here’s how to use SSH to connect to servers.

Assuming you are not in developer mode, to get to the Chrome OS shell, hit Ctrl + Alt + T. Unlike other shells, crosh has its own SSH sub-shell. Simply type ssh, and you’ll be in the SSH sub-shell.

For a quick example, let’s connect to example.com on port 22222 as user servercobra, using a key called Key.pem stored in the download directory.

ssh
host example.com
port 22222
user servercobra
key Key.pem
connect

# And when you're done and exit the SSH session:
quit

# To exit the crosh shell
exit

So you need to specify all of your options on their own lines, unlike the standard SSH client on Linux. Once you have your options specified, just type “connect”. Type “help” for the other options, such as dynamic port forwarding and standard port forwarding.

If you are in developer mode, you can simply hit Ctrl + Alt + T, then write “shell”, to get to a standard Bash shell, or Ctrl + Alt + -> to get to that shell as well. From there, you can use SSH like normal.

About Josh Gachnang

Josh Gachnang is a small business consultant with 5 years of experience in developing IT systems. His specialties include moving IT infrastructure to the cloud, standard and mobile web development using Python and Django, and promoting with social media. chrome os , Chromebook