My Nokia N800 can run SSH (via the standard Linux OpenSSH software compiled for the N800) in client and server modes without a problem. But I like the keyboard on my Treo 650 and can type quite quickly on it. What if I want to use Subversion to update my blog while all I have with me is my Treo? A little Googling turns up pssh, which does the job very well! I also found TuSSH which works, but I like the pssh solution better. TuSSH supports SSH 1 and some SSH 2 servers, while pssh supports only SSH 2 (which is all I connect to anyway–SSH 1 is broken and less secure). Both support public keys for authentication, although I haven’t tested this feature. I think pssh is going to stick around in my Palm’s arsenal and will likely come in quite handy! OpenSSH has its own list of Palm-compatible SSH software, with three entries (two of which I just mentioned). All three are freeware, and pssh and TuSSH both are under 300KB in size each.

One tip I did manage to track down (found this item on the pssh users archived mailing list) was that I could type a Tab character by typing Shift+Space (extensively useful for auto-completion in the bash shell on a full-sized keyboard, but even more so on a thumb board!). There’s a menu option to type a Tab as well, but that does kind of defeat some of the shortcut-ness I was looking for.

pssh does warn that it doesn’t use the best random number generator out there for encryption. I’m all for extra security, but for the few times I will use this I think a targeted attack that manages to crack my SSH tunnel is unlikely, and there are probably weaker links in our webhost-connection security than Secure Shell.