I created a shell alias that runs a simple shell script.
The script is shown below, it sshs into another Linux machine:
#!/bin/bash
sshpass -p 'P@ssw0rd' ssh username@hostname
I would like to encrypt the 'P@ssw0rd' section of the shell script.
Short answer: No, you cannot.
Long answer: Shell scripts are human-readable files. As per the suggestion below, your question does not make proper sense.
Suggestion: Use Public Key Authentication, see some of the found recipes.
Technically, you can encrypt it ... but there's no security value in doing so.
This is because the SSH password must be decrypted (plaintext) to be used, anyone with access to the script can see it - because for your script to decrypt it, your script must have access to the decryption key.
The right way to do it is to use SSH keys, just like Vlastimil suggests.
