bcvk-ephemeral-ssh - Man Page

bcvk ephemeral ssh CONTAINER_NAME [SSH_ARGS]

Connect to a running ephemeral VM via SSH. This command locates the VM's SSH port and connects using the SSH key that was injected when the VM was started with -K or --ssh-keygen.

The target VM must have been started with SSH key injection:

bcvk ephemeral run -d --rm -K --name myvm image

Without -K, the VM will not have SSH keys configured and this command will fail to authenticate.

1. Queries the podman container to find the VM's SSH port
2. Retrieves the SSH private key from the container
3. Connects using the dynamically assigned port and key
4. Passes any additional arguments to the ssh client

SSH connections do not affect the VM lifecycle for background VMs:

• Background VMs (started with -d): Continue running after SSH disconnect. You can reconnect as many times as needed.
• Auto-cleanup VMs (started with --rm): Container is removed when the VM stops, but SSH disconnect alone does not stop the VM.

To stop a background VM, use podman stop.

For automatic cleanup on SSH exit, use bcvk-ephemeral-run-ssh(8) instead.

CONTAINER_NAME

Name or ID of the container running the target VM

This argument is required.

ARGS

SSH arguments like -v, -L, -o

Connect to a running VM:

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm

Execute a command directly:

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm 'systemctl status'

Check disk usage:

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm 'df -h'

View journal logs:

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm 'journalctl -f'

Enable verbose output for debugging connection issues:

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm -v

Forward a local port to the VM:

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm -L 8080:localhost:80
# Access VM's port 80 at localhost:8080

Reverse port forwarding (expose host port to VM):

bcvk ephemeral ssh myvm -R 3000:localhost:3000

# Start a VM in the background
bcvk ephemeral run -d --rm -K --name testvm quay.io/fedora/fedora-bootc:42

# Connect and do some work
bcvk ephemeral ssh testvm
# ... interactive session ...
# exit

# Reconnect later
bcvk ephemeral ssh testvm

# Run a quick command without interactive session
bcvk ephemeral ssh testvm 'cat /etc/os-release'

# Stop the VM when done
podman stop testvm

Use scp-style operations by getting the SSH details:

# For now, use podman exec for file transfer
podman cp localfile testvm:/path/in/container

# Or mount a shared directory when starting the VM
bcvk ephemeral run -d --rm -K --bind /host/path:shared --name vm image

Connection refused: The VM may still be booting. Wait a few seconds and retry.

Permission denied: Ensure the VM was started with -K for SSH key injection.

Host key verification failed: Each VM gets a unique host key. Use -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no if needed.

bcvk(8), bcvk-ephemeral(8), bcvk-ephemeral-run(8), bcvk-ephemeral-run-ssh(8), ssh(1)

bcvk-ephemeral(8), bcvk-ephemeral-run-ssh(8).