Write SSH command over multiple lines

bash shell ssh remote-access
dspshyama picture dspshyama · Aug 18, 2015 · Viewed 12.7k times · Source

I'm trying to remote login to a shell and execute a bunch of commands on the shell. But to make it more readable, I'd like to place my code over multiple lines. How should I be doing this?

ssh -o <Option> -x -l <user> <host> " $long_command1; $long_command2; ....  "

Thanks!

Answer

ntki picture ntki · Aug 18, 2015

You can use the Here Documents feature of bash. It is like:

ssh <remote-host> bash <<EOF
echo first command
echo second command
EOF

EOF marks the end of the input.

For further info: use man bash and search for Here Documents.

Edit: The only caveat is that using variables can be tricky, you have to escape the $ to protect them to be evaluated on the remote host rather then the local shell. Like \$HOSTNAME. Otherwise works with everything that is run from bash and uses stdin.

Related questions

How to specify the private SSH-key to use when executing shell command on Git?

A rather unusual situation perhaps, but I want to specify a private SSH-key to use when executing a shell (git) command from the local computer. Basically like this: git clone [email protected]:TheUser/TheProject.git -key "/home/christoffer/ssh_…

Read More
How to run the sftp command with a password from Bash script?

I need to transfer a log file to a remote host using sftp from a Linux host. I have been provided credentials for the same from my operations group. However, since I don't have control over other host, I cannot …

Read More
Pseudo-terminal will not be allocated because stdin is not a terminal

I am trying to write a shell script that creates some directories on a remote server and then uses scp to copy files from my local machine onto the remote. Here's what I have so far: ssh -t user@server&…

Read More