I am trying to login to Server B from Server A and perform simple UNIX commands on Server B using a shell script. The code is as follows. But ls -al is displaying the result of Server A and not the one that is logged on to i.e Server B. Any inputs are highly appreciated. Thanks
#!/bin/bash
clear
sshpass -p password ssh hostname
ls -al
exit
When the shell interprets a script file, it creates a child process to
execute each command line. So, the command lines after sshpass -p password ssh hostname are not actually executed inside the ssh
session to hostname, but in the host where the bash instance is
running.
To achieve what you want, you can check ssh(1) usage line and note that there is a [command] argument, that says:
If command is specified, it is executed on the remote host instead of a login shell.
So, one way to do it is sshpass -p password ssh hostname ls -la. Another way which can provide some more flexibility is:
#!/bin/bash
clear
cat | sshpass -p password ssh hostname <<EOF
ls -la
EOF
Which would make ssh start a login shell in the remote host and pass to its stdin the lines provided in the Here Document. The remote shell would then interpret those strings as commands and execute them.
If you just want to run ls -al on the remote server, put it on the same line as the ssh command like
sshpass -p password ssh hostname ls -al
it will automatically exit when it gets to the end of the command so you don't need to put exit
Also, if you're going to be doing this and don't want to interactively enter the password, you might want to look at sharing public/private keys and using that so it won't ever ask for a password (unless you password protect your private key)