How to execute a series of commands after logging in to a remote server over SSH?

Question

I want to login to an interactive shell on a server using SSH and, after logging in, execute two commands.

This works: ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --login"

None of the following work:

ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --login -c 'source /home/user2/.bashrc'"

ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --login -c source /home/user2/.bashrc"

ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --login source /home/user2/.bashrc"

ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --login; source /home/user2/.bashrc"

When I call ssh with the -v flag, I see the following before the ssh session exits:

debug1: Sending command: cd /home/user2; bash --login -c "source /home/user2/.bashrc"
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0

I know this might look odd; I need to login as user1 so that I can use software (legally) that can only be run by user1, but I want to run my personal .bashrc and work in my personal working directory. I can not modify /home/user1/.bashrc. Is there any better way to do what I'm trying to do?

Dima Chubarov · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-24 19:19:51Z

3

I might be missing something but in order to achieve the stated goal:

Log in as user1
Set working directory to the home of user2
Source .bashrc from user2

it is enough to say

ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --rcfile /home/user2/.bashrc -i"

Note that in most cases this would work without the -i and without giving the full path to .bashrc:

ssh user1@server -t "cd /home/user2; bash --rcfile .bashrc "

answered Jan 24, 2013 at 19:19

Dima Chubarov

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1 Comment

monguin Over a year ago

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed. I thought there might be a way to specify an rc file, but I've never needed to do such a thing before.

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