Linux Terminal – How to Spawn Multiple SSH Terminals

Each new user connecting spawns a new sshd session with a specific PID. You could use pstree to print which commands are inherited from which sshd session, and then cross check this PID in /var/log/auth.log.

Example (anonymized): I logged in to a remote server with 3 simultaneous sessions, with the same remote user. I now want to find out from which IP the client came that ran the command watch date.

$ pstree -p | grep watch
        |           |-sshd(15243)---sshd(15342)---bash(15343)---watch(15450)
$ sudo grep 15243 /var/log/auth.log
Mar  7 15:37:29 XXXXXXXXXX sshd[15243]: Accepted publickey for XXXXXXXXXX from 12.34.56.78 port 48218 ssh2
Mar  7 15:37:29 XXXXXXXXXX sshd[15243]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user XXXXXXXXXX by (uid=0)
Mar  7 15:37:44 XXXXXXXXXX sudo: XXXXXXXXXX : TTY=pts/7 ; PWD=/home/XXXXXXXXXX ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/grep 15243 /var/log/auth.log

pstree -p shows that the watch command is inherited from sshd with PID 15243. greping for this PID in /var/auth/auth.log shows that it was IP 12.34.56.78 that started this session. Therefore this is also the user that started watch.

As for finding history for specifically this user, it cannot be done from what I can see when all remote users are using the same local SSH user. Also, it can easily be spoofed/inactivated/etc., so it's not really reliable. If it is saved to the history file, then you could just look for the cp command and look backwards in the file, but if it is not there, then there is not much to do.

Yes it is possible.

One way to do it is with the xmonad-contrib package using spawnOn

Here is how I used it in a triple monitor setup to start a terminal on each screen on startup.

import XMonad
import XMonad.Hooks.EwmhDesktops
import XMonad.Hooks.SetWMName
import qualified Data.Map as M
import XMonad.Prompt.XMonad
import XMonad.Actions.SpawnOn -- *[This is the important part]*

main :: IO()
main =
  xmonad $
  ewmh
    def
      { modMask = mod4Mask -- Use Super instead of Alt
      , terminal = "urxvt"
      , startupHook = myStartupHook
      , manageHook = manageSpawn <+> myManageHooks
      , borderWidth = 1
      , normalBorderColor = "#000000"
      , focusedBorderColor = "#FFFF00"
      , keys = myKeys <+> keys def
      }

myKeys :: XConfig t -> M.Map (KeyMask, KeySym) (X ())
myKeys conf@(XConfig {XMonad.modMask = modm}) =
  M.fromList
    [ ((modm, xK_F12), xmonadPrompt def)
    , ((modm, xK_b), spawn "/usr/bin/firefox")
    , ((modm, xK_p), spawn "/usr/bin/keepassxc")
    ]

myManageHooks :: ManageHook
myManageHooks = composeAll [ stringProperty "_NET_WM_NAME" =? "Emulator" --> doFloat ]

myStartupHook :: X ()
myStartupHook = composeAll
  [ setWMName "LG3D"
  , spawnOn "1" "/usr/bin/urxvt" -- *[Pass the workspace id and the program to spawn]*
  , spawnOn "2" "/usr/bin/urxvt"
  , spawnOn "3" "/usr/bin/urxvt"
  ]