bind commands to an ssh

Question

I'm new to this, wondering if someone could help.

I need to ssh to a server and bind commands to it, which copies a directory, zips it up etc..

ssh user@123.45.67.89 ; cd /to/directory/ ; zip these files

Something similar to the above. If anyone could offer advice, would be a great help! Thanks

Answer 1

You can append a command to ssh:

ssh user@123.45.67.89 "cd /to/directory/ ; gzip -r somedir > test.zip"

Be careful of string expansion:

Double quotes get expanded on the local machine.

ssh user@123.45.67.89 "gzip -r /var/www/$(hostname)/httpdocs > test.zip"

expands to: gzip -r /var/www/localhostname/httpdocs > test.zip

Single quotes get expanded on the remote machine.

ssh user@123.45.67.89 'gzip -r /var/www/$(hostname)/httpdocs > test.zip'

expands to: gzip -r /var/www/remotehostname/httpdocs > test.zip