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<title>SSHEXEC Task</title>
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<h2 id="sshexec">SSHEXEC</h2>
<p><em>Since Apache Ant 1.6</em></p>
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>Runs a command on a remote machine running SSH daemon.</p>
<p><strong>Note</strong>: This task depends on external libraries not included in the Ant
distribution. See <a href="../install.html#librarydependencies">Library Dependencies</a> for more
information. This task has been tested with JSCh 0.1.29 and above and won't work with versions of
JSCh earlier than 0.1.28.</p>
<p>See also the <a href="scp.html">scp task</a></p>
<h3>Parameters</h3>
<table class="attr">
<tr>
<th scope="col">Attribute</th>
<th scope="col">Description</th>
<th scope="col">Required</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>host</td>
<td>The hostname or IP address of the remote host to which you wish to connect.</td>
<td>Yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>username</td>
<td>The username on the remote host to which you are connecting.</td>
<td>Yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>command</td>
<td>The command to run on the remote host.</td>
<td rowspan="2">Exactly one of the two</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>commandResource</td>
<td class="left">The resource (file) that contains the commands to run on the remote
host. <em>Since Ant 1.7.1</em></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>port</td>
<td>The port to connect to on the remote host.</td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>22</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>trust</td>
<td>This trusts all unknown hosts if set to <q>yes</q>
or <q>true</q>.<br/><strong>Note</strong>: If you set this to <q>false</q> (the default), the
host you connect to must be listed in your <var>knownhosts</var> file, this also implies that
the file exists.</td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>no</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>knownhosts</td>
<td>This sets the known hosts file to use to validate the identity of the remote host. This
must be a SSH2 format file. SSH1 format is not supported.</td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>${user.home}/.ssh/known_hosts</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>failonerror</td>
<td>Whether to halt the build if the command does not complete successfully.</td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>true</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>password</td>
<td>The password.</td>
<td>Yes, unless you are using key based authentication or the password has been given in the
file or <var>todir</var> attribute.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>keyfile</td>
<td>Location of the file holding the private key.</td>
<td>Yes, if you are using key based authentication</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>passphrase</td>
<td>Passphrase for your private key.</td>
<td>No; defaults to an empty string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>sshConfig</td>
<td>Location of the file holding the OpenSSH style configuration (e.g. <code>${user.home}/.ssh/config</code>).
The username and the key file are read from the configuration file,
unless they are already specified in the task parameters.
<em>since Ant 1.10.8</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>suppresssystemout</td>
<td>Whether to suppress system out. <em>since Ant 1.9.0</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>suppresssystemerr</td>
<td>Whether to suppress <code>System.err</code>. <em>since Ant 1.9.4</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>output</td>
<td>Name of a file to which to write the output.</td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>errorOutput</td>
<td>The file to which the standard error of the command should be redirected. <em>since Ant
1.9.4</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>append</td>
<td>Whether <var>output</var> file should be appended to or overwritten.</td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q>, meaning overwrite any existing file</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>errAppend</td>
<td>Whether <var>errorOutput</var> file should be appended to or overwritten. <em>since Ant
1.9.4</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q>, meaning overwrite any existing file</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>outputproperty</td>
<td>The name of a property in which the output of the command should be stored. If you use
the <var>commandResource</var> attribute, each command's output will be prefixed by the
command itself.</td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>errorproperty</td>
<td>The name of a property in which the standard error of the command should be
stored. <em>since Ant 1.9.4</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>resultproperty</td>
<td>the name of a property in which the return code of the command should be stored. Only of
interest if <var>failonerror</var>=<q>false</q>. <em>since Ant 1.9.4</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>timeout</td>
<td>Stop the command if it doesn't finish within the specified time (given in
milliseconds <strong>unlike <code>telnet</code>, which expects a timeout in
seconds</strong>).</td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>0</q> which means <q>never</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>input</td>
<td>A file from which the executed command's standard input is taken. This attribute is mutually
exclusive with the <var>inputstring</var> and <var>inputproperty</var> attributes.<br/> When
executing more than one command via <var>commandResource</var>, input will be read for each
command. <em>since Ant 1.8.0</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>verbose</td>
<td>Determines whether <code>sshexec</code> outputs verbosely to the user.<br/> Similar output
is generated as the <kbd>ssh</kbd> command line tool with the <kbd>-v</kbd>
option. <em>since Ant 1.8.0</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>inputproperty</td>
<td>Name of a property content of which serves as the input stream for the executed
command. This attribute is mutually exclusive with the <var>input</var>
and <var>inputstring</var> attributes.<br/> When executing more than one command
via <var>commandResource</var>, input will be read for each command. <em>since Ant
1.8.0</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>inputstring</td>
<td>A string which serves as the input stream for the executed command. This attribute is
mutually exclusive with the <var>input</var> and <var>inputproperty</var> attributes.<br/>
When executing more than one command via <var>commandResource</var>, input will be read for
each command. <em>since Ant 1.8.3</em></td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>usepty</td>
<td>Whether to allocate a pseudo-tty (like <kbd>ssh -t</kbd>). <em>since Ant 1.8.3</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>useSystemIn</td>
<td>Whether to pass the current standard input to the remote process. <em>since Ant
1.9.4</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>false</q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>serverAliveIntervalSeconds</td>
<td>Sets a timeout interval in seconds after which if no data has been received from the server,
the task will send a message through the encrypted channel to request a response from the
server. <em>since Ant 1.9.7</em></td>
<td>No, the default is <q>0</q>, indicating that these messages will not be sent to the
server</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>serverAliveCountMax</td>
<td>The number of server alive messages which may be sent without receiving any messages back
from the server. Only used if <var>serverAliveIntervalSeconds</var> is
not <q>0</q>. <em>since Ant 1.9.7</em></td>
<td>No; defaults to <q>3</q></td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Examples</h3>
<p>Run a command on a remote machine using password authentication</p>
<pre>
<sshexec host="somehost"
username="dude"
password="yo"
command="touch somefile"/></pre>
<p>Run a command on a remote machine using key authentication</p>
<pre>
<sshexec host="somehost"
username="dude"
keyfile="${user.home}/.ssh/id_dsa"
passphrase="yo its a secret"
command="touch somefile"/></pre>
<p>Run a command on a remote machine using key authentication with no passphrase</p>
<pre>
<sshexec host="somehost"
username="dude"
keyfile="${user.home}/.ssh/id_dsa"
command="touch somefile"/></pre>
<p>Run a set of commands from a command resource (file) on a remote machine using key authentication
with no passphrase</p>
<pre>
<sshexec host="somehost"
username="dude"
keyfile="${user.home}/.ssh/id_dsa"
commandResource="to_run"/></pre>
<p><strong>Security Note</strong>: Hardcoding passwords and/or usernames in <var>sshexec</var> task
can be a serious security hole. Consider using variable substitution and include the password on the
command line. For example:</p>
<pre>
<sshexec host="somehost"
username="${username}"
password="${password}"
command="touch somefile"/></pre>
<p>Invoking Ant with the following command line:</p>
<pre class="input">ant -Dusername=me -Dpassword=mypassword target1 target2</pre>
<p>is slightly better, but the username/password is exposed to all users on an Unix system (via
the <kbd>ps</kbd> command). The best approach is to use the <code><input></code> task and/or
retrieve the password from a (secured) <samp>.properties</samp> file.</p>
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