39.2 The ssh Program

Using the ssh program, it is possible to log in to remote systems and work interactively. It replaces both telnet and rlogin. The slogin program is just a symbolic link pointing to ssh. For example, log in to the host sun with the command ssh sun. The host then prompts for the password on sun.

After successful authentication, you can work on the remote command line or use interactive applications, such as YaST. If the local username is different from the remote username, you can log in using a different login name with ssh -l augustine sun or ssh augustine@sun.

Furthermore, ssh offers the possibility to run commands on remote systems, as known from rsh. In the following example, run the command uptime on the host sun and create a directory with the name tmp. The program output is displayed on the local terminal of the host earth.

ssh otherplanet "uptime; mkdir tmp"
Password:
1:21pm  up  2:17,  9 users,  load average: 0.15, 0.04, 0.02

Quotation marks are necessary here to send both instructions with one command. It is only by doing this that the second command is executed on sun.