7

As part of my normal workflow I ssh into another user's machine, switch user to them, run a command, then exit out to my own machine again:

ssh hostname
sudo su user
runcommand
exit
exit

Is there a way to cut this down to a single line command? e.g.

ssh --someflags "runcommand"

I have tried this but get prompted for the other user's password which I do not have:

sudo ssh user@hostnme "runcommand"
2
  • Something like ssh myaccount@somehost "su -u <user> -c <command>" wouldn't work?
    – Fiisch
    Oct 4, 2013 at 18:56
  • You could always publish your key into their authorized_keys file. Then you can connect to using that users account directly.
    – Zoredache
    Oct 4, 2013 at 19:28

2 Answers 2

9

Do you have a user on all of the remote computers? I guess this should work, but im not sure i understand your setup correctly.

ssh youruser@hostname "sudo -u remoteuser runcommand"

3
  • And how exactly does this address the Esker's problem?
    – Fiisch
    Oct 4, 2013 at 18:59
  • Yeah, I misread. Updated the answer. Oct 4, 2013 at 19:00
  • 3
    With a bit of tweaking, that worked, thanks. ssh -t hostname "sudo su user -c runcommand"
    – Esker
    Oct 4, 2013 at 19:03
3

It's often the case that a terminal is required as well. The following should work in this case:

commands='cd myfolder;ls -l'

ssh -ttt "youruser@remotehost" "sudo -u remoteuser sh -c ${commands}"
1
  • interesting: using ... sh -c ... works for me; but ... bash -c .... does not and evaluates a chained command partly as the original user.
    – Abdull
    Sep 22, 2023 at 14:34

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