Getting ssh to execute a command in the background

Question

This is a follow-on question to the How do you use ssh in a shell script? question. If I want to execute a command on the remote machine that runs in the background on that machine, how do I get the ssh command to return? When I try to just include the ampersand (&) at the end of the command it just hangs. The exact form of the command looks like this:

ssh user@target "cd /some/directory; program-to-execute &"

Any ideas? One thing to note is that logins to the the target machine always produce a text banner and I have SSH keys set up so no password is required.

Answer 1

Quickest and easiest way is to use the 'at' command:

ssh user@target "at now -f /home/foo.sh"

Answer 2

I think this is what you need: At first you need to install sshpass on your machine. then you can write your own script:

while read pass port user ip; do
sshpass -p$pass ssh -p $port $user@$ip <<ENDSSH1
    COMMAND 1
    .
    .
    .
    COMMAND n
ENDSSH1
done <<____HERE
    PASS    PORT    USER    IP
      .      .       .       .
      .      .       .       .
      .      .       .       .
    PASS    PORT    USER    IP    
____HERE

Answer 3

If you don't/can't keep the connection open you could use screen, if you have the rights to install it.

user@localhost $ screen -t remote-command
user@localhost $ ssh user@target # now inside of a screen session
user@remotehost $ cd /some/directory; program-to-execute &

To detach the screen session: ctrl-a d

To list screen sessions:

screen -ls

To reattach a session:

screen -d -r remote-command

Note that screen can also create multiple shells within each session. A similar effect can be achieved with tmux.

user@localhost $ tmux
user@localhost $ ssh user@target # now inside of a tmux session
user@remotehost $ cd /some/directory; program-to-execute &

To detach the tmux session: ctrl-b d

To list screen sessions:

tmux list-sessions

To reattach a session:

tmux attach <session number>

The default tmux control key, 'ctrl-b', is somewhat difficult to use but there are several example tmux configs that ship with tmux that you can try.

Answer 4

Redirect fd's

Output needs to be redirected with &>/dev/null which redirects both stderr and stdout to /dev/null and is a synonym of >/dev/null 2>/dev/null or >/dev/null 2>&1.

Parantheses

The best way is to use sh -c '( ( command ) & )' where command is anything.

ssh askapache 'sh -c "( ( nohup chown -R ask:ask /www/askapache.com &>/dev/null ) & )"'

Nohup Shell

You can also use nohup directly to launch the shell:

ssh askapache 'nohup sh -c "( ( chown -R ask:ask /www/askapache.com &>/dev/null ) & )"'

Nice Launch

Another trick is to use nice to launch the command/shell:

ssh askapache 'nice -n 19 sh -c "( ( nohup chown -R ask:ask /www/askapache.com &>/dev/null ) & )"'

Answer 5

First follow this procedure:

Log in on A as user a and generate a pair of authentication keys. Do not enter a passphrase:

a@A:~> ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/a/.ssh/id_rsa): 
Created directory '/home/a/.ssh'.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /home/a/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/a/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
3e:4f:05:79:3a:9f:96:7c:3b:ad:e9:58:37:bc:37:e4 a@A

Now use ssh to create a directory ~/.ssh as user b on B. (The directory may already exist, which is fine):

a@A:~> ssh b@B mkdir -p .ssh
b@B's password: 

Finally append a's new public key to b@B:.ssh/authorized_keys and enter b's password one last time:

a@A:~> cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh b@B 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'
b@B's password: 

From now on you can log into B as b from A as a without password:

a@A:~> ssh b@B

then this will work without entering a password

ssh b@B "cd /some/directory; program-to-execute &"

Answer 6

I just wanted to show a working example that you can cut and paste:

ssh REMOTE "sh -c \"(nohup sleep 30; touch nohup-exit) > /dev/null &\""