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run complex remote shell cmds over ssh, without escaping quotes

Terminal - run complex remote shell cmds over ssh, without escaping quotes
ssh host -l user $(<cmd.txt)
2010-06-04 17:47:00
User: recursiverse
Functions: host ssh
26
Up
Down
run complex remote shell cmds over ssh, without escaping quotes

Much simpler method. More portable version: ssh host -l user "`cat cmd.txt`"

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Alternatives

There are 2 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
echo "properly_escaped_command" | ssh user@host $(< /dev/fd/0)
2012-07-18 10:36:07
User: trantorvega
Functions: echo ssh
Tags: host ssh expansion bash quote
2
Up
Down
run complex remote shell cmds over ssh, without escaping quotes

It executes commands as arguments to ssh, avoiding problematic shell expansions, without the need of writing the commands in question to a temporary file, just reading them from STDIN.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
perl -e 'system @ARGV, <STDIN>' ssh host -l user < cmd.txt
2010-06-04 17:27:20
User: recursiverse
Functions: host perl ssh
0
Up
Down
run complex remote shell cmds over ssh, without escaping quotes

I was tired of the endless quoting, unquoting, re-quoting, and escaping characters that left me with working, but barely comprehensible shell one-liners. It can be really frustrating, especially if the local and remote shells differ and have their own escaping and quoting rules. I decided to try a different approach and ended up with this.

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Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

so we need to save the command in cmd.txt first and then run it?

there's no way to do this? :

ssh host -l user $(perl -ane "print $F[1]\n" filename )
Comment by alperyilmaz 158 weeks and 5 days ago

one alternative I can think of (not to save a file and then use "cat cmd.txt") is;

ssh host -l user "`cat -`"

And then type your command, press Enter and then ctrl-D. This will allow you run complex commands on remote machine without saving a file..

Comment by alperyilmaz 158 weeks and 4 days ago

Nice one, thanks!

Comment by DaveQB 158 weeks and 3 days ago

Couldn't you just do,

ssh -t user@host cat cmd.exe

It has something to do with the -t, I'll have to re-read the man pages beucase I forgot all of what it does.

Comment by Dark006 158 weeks and 1 day ago

Oops my bad, nevermind my comment above. I used the -t in my command before to attach to a screen.

http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2844/ssh-and-attach-to-a-screen-in-one-line.#comment

Comment by Dark006 158 weeks and 1 day ago

What about `ssh user@host < cmd.txt`?

Comment by tlrobinson 157 weeks and 1 day ago

Your point of view

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