Using SSH for remote commands

This tip shows a less common use of SSH. Most people use SSH to login to servers or boxes remotely. However, you can also use SSH to issue commands on remote servers without opening a full login shell.
Note: To use SSH without having to enter a password all the time, use the passwordless login tutorial in the "Security" section.
To issue commands through SSH, simply type the command after the normal SSH login information (e.g. ssh user@host command). The following example shows you how to view log files on a remote web server.
Code Listing 1: Viewing an Apache2 access_log

% ssh david@www.example.com tail /var/log/apache2/access_log

Alternatively, you could change passwords over SSH (although using public key authentication with SSH is recommended over passwords).
Code Listing 2: Remotely changing a password

% ssh david@example.com passwd  
(current) UNIX password: password  
New UNIX password: new_password  
Retype new UNIX password: new_password  
Changing password for david

This should get you started with remote command execution. See the SSH man pages for more options.
From http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030908-newsletter.xml

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