Running commands on a remote host with SSH

SSH is an interesting system administration tool that gives you access to a shell on a remote computer which you can use to run commands. SSH stands for Secure Shell as it transfers the network data transfer over an encrypted tunnel. This recipe will introduce different ways in which commands can be executed at a remote host.

Getting ready

SSH doesn't come preinstalled with all GNU/Linux distributions, and you may have to install the openssh-server and openssh-client packages using a package manager. SSH service runs at default port number 22.

How to do it...

1. To connect to a remote host with the SSH server running, use:

   $ ssh username@remote_host
   

   In this command:

   • username is the user that exists at the remote host

   • remote_host can be the domain name or IP address

   For example:

   $ ssh mec@192.168.0.1
   The authenticity of host '192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)' can't be established.
   RSA key fingerprint is 2b:b4:90:79:49:0a:f1:b3:8a:db:9f:73:2d:75:d6:f9.
   Are you sure...