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Malabarba
Asked: 2010-12-04 07:25:17 +0800 CST

Remotely run a command on a ssh-server with a script

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I want to run a command on a ssh-server, but this command is determined by a script on my local machine. How do I do that?

An example for clarity:
I want to write a script here (foo.sh) that takes an argument. If I run ./foo.sh 0 it should somehow send a shutdown signal to the server machine, but if I run ./foo.sh 1 it should send a restart signal.

I know how to manually login via ssh, and I've already set ssh-keys to skip passwords, but I don't know how to automate the procedure with a script.

scripts server ssh

3 Answers

  1. You can pass a command (or list of commands, separated by ; or &&) to a SSH connection like this:

    ssh user@server-address "./foo 1"

    If you have a local script that outputs 0 or 1, you can simplify things further:

    ssh user@server-address "./foo $(/path/to/your/local/script)"

    The code in $(...) executes before anything else and its output is put into the line dynamically. It's called command substitution.

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  2. Best Answer

    As Oli commented, you can tell SSH to send commands. You could modify your script so that if your command line arg is 1 it sends ssh user@server "shutdown -h now". Keep in mind that you'll have to be superuser on the other machine to shut it down.

    EDIT: Instead of using root, as is suggested in the comments put user into the sudoers file as being able to shut down the machine without a password.

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  3. You can use runoverssh:

    sudo apt install runoverssh

    runoverssh -n -s localscript.sh user host

    -n will use SSH default authentication (your keys)
    -s runs a local script remotely

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