How to send data to local clipboard from a remote SSH session

My favorite way is ssh [remote-machine] "cat log.txt" | xclip -selection c. This is most useful when you don't want to (or can't) ssh from remote to local.

Edit: on Cygwin ssh [remote-machine] "cat log.txt" > /dev/clipboard.

Edit: A helpful comment from nbren12:

It is almost always possible to setup a reverse ssh connection using SSH port forwarding. Just add RemoteForward 127.0.0.1:2222 127.0.0.1:22 to the server's entry in your local .ssh/config, and then execute ssh -p 2222 127.0.0.1 on the remote machine, which will then redirect the connection to the local machine. – nbren12

I'm resurrecting this thread because I've been looking for the same kind of solution, and I've found one that works for me. It's a minor modification to a suggestion from OSX Daily.

In my case, I use Terminal on my local OSX machine to connect to a linux server via SSH. Like the OP, I wanted to be able to transfer small bits of text from terminal to my local clipboard, using only the keyboard.

The essence of the solution:

commandThatMakesOutput | ssh desktop pbcopy

When run in an ssh session to a remote computer, this command takes the output of commandThatMakesOutput (e.g. ls, pwd) and pipes the output to the clipboard of the local computer (the name or IP of "desktop"). In other words, it uses nested ssh: you're connected to the remote computer via one ssh session, you execute the command there, and the remote computer connects to your desktop via a different ssh session and puts the text to your clipboard.

It requires your desktop to be configured as an ssh server (which I leave to you and google). It's much easier if you've set up ssh keys to facilitate fast ssh usage, preferably using a per-session passphrase, or whatever your security needs require.

Other examples:

ls  | ssh desktopIpAddress pbcopypwd |  ssh desktopIpAddress pbcopy

For convenience, I've created a bash file to shorten the text required after the pipe:

#!/bin/bashssh desktop pbcopy

In my case, i'm using a specially named key

I saved it with the file name cb (my mnemonic (ClipBoard). Put the script somewhere in your path, make it executable and voila:

ls | cb

Found a great solution that doesn't require a reverse ssh connection!

You can use xclip on the remote host, along with ssh X11 forwarding & XQuartz on the OSX system.

To set this up:

1. Install XQuartz (I did this with soloist + pivotal_workstation::xquartz recipe, but you don't have to)
2. Run XQuartz.app
3. Open XQuartz Preferences (+,)
4. Make sure "Enable Syncing" and "Update Pasteboard when CLIPBOARD changes" are checked
5. ssh -X remote-host "echo 'hello from remote-host' | xclip -selection clipboard"