Package paramiko

source code

Paramiko (a combination of the esperanto words for "paranoid" and "friend") is a module for python 2.3 or greater that implements the SSH2 protocol for secure (encrypted and authenticated) connections to remote machines. Unlike SSL (aka TLS), the SSH2 protocol does not require heirarchical certificates signed by a powerful central authority. You may know SSH2 as the protocol that replaced telnet and rsh for secure access to remote shells, but the protocol also includes the ability to open arbitrary channels to remote services across an encrypted tunnel. (This is how sftp works, for example.)

The high-level client API starts with creation of an SSHClient object. For more direct control, pass a socket (or socket-like object) to a Transport, and use start_server or start_client to negoatite with the remote host as either a server or client. As a client, you are responsible for authenticating using a password or private key, and checking the server's host key. (Key signature and verification is done by paramiko, but you will need to provide private keys and check that the content of a public key matches what you expected to see.) As a server, you are responsible for deciding which users, passwords, and keys to allow, and what kind of channels to allow.

Once you have finished, either side may request flow-controlled Channels to the other side, which are python objects that act like sockets, but send and receive data over the encrypted session.

Paramiko is written entirely in python (no C or platform-dependent code) and is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

Website: http://www.lag.net/paramiko/