Is it possible to use kerberos authentication with visual studio code remote?

Question

We use kerberos authentication for connecting to our on-prem computing environment. I'd like to use visual studio code remote to do development directly on that server. Based on this section in the vscode remote documentation, it seems like it's possible to use password-based authentication, which works for me, but it would be nice if I could use existing kerberos authentication, instead of having to type my password every time I start up a vscode session.

I've tried searching through the documentation above, but I can't figure out if kerberos is supported. I would like to know if I should respectfully raise an issue on the issue tracker.

Answer 1

Update from March 2020.

I've used plain PuTTY (plink.exe) to connect from VsCode with kerberos using those simple steps.

1. Define a session inside PuTTY that opens a ssh shell to your remote machine, save it as remote.
2. Create "C:\Users\< youruser >\ssh.bat" with the contents below. You need echo to fool VsCode that it's OpenSSH client.

   echo OpenSSH
   SET mypath=%~dp0
   powershell %mypath%ssh.ps1 %*
   

   3. Create powershell script ssh.ps1 in the same folder with these contents:

$ArgArray = [System.Collections.ArrayList]$Args
$ind = $ArgArray.IndexOf("-F")
if ($ind -ge 0) {
  $ArgArray.RemoveAt($ind)
  $ArgArray.RemoveAt($ind)
}
Write-Host $ArgArray
& 'C:\Program Files\PuTTY\plink.exe' $ArgArray

Theoretically you can write it in batch language but I did not want to suffer.

4. Set "remote.SSH.path" setting in VsCode to your ssh.bat path.
5. Finally, add ssh host configuration in vscode and use session name as host:

 Host remote
     HostName remote
     User <you ssh user> 

Answer 2

My tweak on @Roman's batch script

@echo off

for %%x in (%*) do (
  REM Handle -V
  IF "%%x" == "-V" GOTO :version
  REM Handle vscode remote as special for plink only
  IF "%%x" == "remote" GOTO :plink
)
REM use the built in ssh by default
GOTO :default_ssh

:version
echo OpenSSH
GOTO :eof

:plink
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass %~dp0ssh.ps1 %*
GOTO :eof

:default_ssh
ssh.exe %*
GOTO :eof

It allows you to only use plink for the vscode "remote" server name (I have my reasons), so everything behaves as normal unless you choose hostname remote