Running shell commands remotely on multiple servers?

Question

I need to run shell commands on several servers. Is there a secure way to do this? Right now im thinking of exposing a php url that allows me to send pure script commands and let the web server spit out a json response. But this is a lot of work and doesnt sound like it will be very secure.

I want to run commands like "ping", "whois" and other network commands. Its about seeing connectivity between different servers. Ie Server in germany can talk to the server in the us, etc

Answer 1

Use ssh . Read a good ssh tutorial . You want to use it with a public key (to avoid typing passwords).

Of course, you need to have an SSH server process running on the remote server machines.