Shell script to remove files from multiple host

Question

I have a script, which ssh's into a list of host's and deletes files. The problem that I am facing is that when the deletion happens the console asks's for password.

To get around that I know use the below code which hardcodes the password

time cat ../hosts.txt | xargs -P 16 -I foo ssh foo ' echo "MYPASSWORD" | sudo -kS rm -rf /tmp/randomfile*'

Is there any way to avoid hardcoding the password?

Answer 1

You could set up a ssh-agent .

I would suggest using a ssh-key, you could check this article describing how to create it and add it to your ssh-agent:

https://help.github.com/articles/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent/