ssh-penetration-testing

ssh-penetration-testing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from zebbern/claude-code-guide. It costs 63 tokens per session (3,406 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A guide to assessing SSH, the secure protocol commonly used for remote command-line access to servers. It covers service discovery, configuration checks, credential attacks, known vulnerabilities, and port forwarding, which routes traffic through an SSH connection.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to audit SSH services, review supported versions and algorithms, test credentials, check known vulnerabilities, and document SSH tunnels and port forwarding.
Why use it?
It helps reveal weak passwords, unsafe authentication, outdated software, risky settings, and unintended access paths on SSH servers.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

About the project

Claude Code Guide is a reference collection for configuring and using Claude Code, Anthropic’s command-line coding agent. Developers use it to learn commands, skills, agents, MCP, automation, security, integrations, and troubleshooting. Its catalogue add-ons provide many of the documented skills and agents.

zebbern/claude-code-guide · 4,600 stars · on GitHub

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/zebbern/claude-code-guide/ssh-penetration-testing
Any agent
npx skills add zebbern/claude-code-guide --skill ssh-penetration-testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zebbern/claude-code-guide

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ssh-penetration-testing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zebbern/claude-code-guide/ssh-penetration-testing.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/zebbern/claude-code-guide/ssh-penetration-testing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zebbern/claude-code-guide/ssh-penetration-testing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zebbern/claude-code-guide/ssh-penetration-testing.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 63 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,406 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 4 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00063 $0.03406
Opus 5 $0.00032 $0.01703
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00681
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00341

Measured yesterday against content hash 2c51adf87fd4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

ssh-penetration-testing scanned grade C with 4 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Enumerates the file system for secretsmediumData exfiltration

Searching home directories for .env, .ssh, .aws or credential files is reconnaissance for credential theft.

ls -la ~/.ssh/

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Asks for rootlowPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

# Check sudo privileges

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Reaches for credential filesmediumPrivilege escalation

SSH keys, cloud credentials, git-credentials, .npmrc, /etc/shadow: reading these is how a config file becomes a credential leak.

~/.ssh/id_rsa

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

# Web-accessible keys (check with curl/wget)
Origin

Copies of this mod

2 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

skills/ssh-penetration-testing/SKILL.md · 489 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 489 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

SSH Penetration Testing

Purpose

Conduct comprehensive SSH security assessments including enumeration, credential attacks, vulnerability exploitation, tunneling techniques, and post-exploitation activities. This skill covers the complete methodology for testing SSH service security.

Prerequisites

Required Tools

  • Nmap with SSH scripts
  • Hydra or Medusa for brute-forcing
  • ssh-audit for configuration analysis
  • Metasploit Framework
  • Python with Paramiko library

Required Knowledge

  • SSH protocol fundamentals
  • Public/private key authentication
  • Port forwarding concepts
  • Linux command-line proficiency

Outputs and Deliverables

  1. SSH Enumeration Report - Versions, algorithms, configurations
  2. Credential Assessment - Weak passwords, default credentials
  3. Vulnerability Assessment - Known CVEs, misconfigurations
  4. Tunnel Documentation - Port forwarding configurations

Core Workflow

Phase 1: SSH Service Discovery

Identify SSH services on target networks:

# Quick SSH port scan
nmap -p 22 192.168.1.0/24 --open

# Common alternate SSH ports
nmap -p 22,2222,22222,2200 192.168.1.100

# Full port scan for SSH
nmap -p- --open 192.168.1.100 | grep -i ssh

# Service version detection
nmap -sV -p 22 192.168.1.100

Phase 2: SSH Enumeration

Gather detailed information about SSH services:

# Banner grabbing
nc 192.168.1.100 22
# Output: SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_8.4p1 Debian-5

# Telnet banner grab
telnet 192.168.1.100 22

# Nmap version detection with scripts
nmap -sV -p 22 --script ssh-hostkey 192.168.1.100

# Enumerate supported algorithms
nmap -p 22 --script ssh2-enum-algos 192.168.1.100

# Get host keys
nmap -p 22 --script ssh-hostkey --script-args ssh_hostkey=full 192.168.1.100

# Check authentication methods
nmap -p 22 --script ssh-auth-methods --script-args="ssh.user=root" 192.168.1.100

Phase 3: SSH Configuration Auditing

Identify weak configurations:

# ssh-audit - comprehensive SSH audit
ssh-audit 192.168.1.100

# ssh-audit with specific port
ssh-audit -p 2222 192.168.1.100

# Output includes:
# - Algorithm recommendations
# - Security vulnerabilities
# - Hardening suggestions

Read the full file on GitHub · 489 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 489 lines · 63 tokens per session scan C 2c51adf87fd4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ssh-penetration-testing is a skill published in the GitHub repository zebbern/claude-code-guide (4,600 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 63 tokens to every session and 3,406 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 4 findings (enumerates the file system for secrets, asks for root, reaches for credential files). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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