On 04Nov2009 14:56, Dan Track <dan.track@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: | On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Bryn M. Reeves <bmr@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: | >> for i in server1 server2;do ssh root@$i "DNSNAME=$(basename | >> $(hostname)$);echo $DNSNAME";done | > | > You need to use single quotes instead of double quotes - see the rules | > in the bash man page about quote expansion. A single quoted string is | > not subject to any expansion by the shell on the client machine but a | > double quoted string will be expanded on the client before the ssh | > command is executed. | > | > $ ssh abox 'DNSNAME=$(basename $(hostname));echo $DNSNAME' | > abox.example.com | > | > I still don't think that basename will do what you want here... | | Great that single quote worked. It's nwo returning the correct result. | Many thanks. The basename command works well. I'm echoing from both Todd and Bryn's remarks about basename being useless here (try replacing $(basename $(hostname)) with just $(hostname) and see the script do exactly the sam thing). However, I want to point out that because ssh hands its arguments-joined-together-with-spaces to the shell at the far end, you can do a lot of testing like this: sh -c 'some shell command...' and when happy, run it remotely thus: ssh remote-host 'some shell command...' Also, to see how it is looking while debugging, you can do this: ( set -x sh -c 'some shell command...' ) or on one line if you're command line editing: ( set -x; sh -c 'some shell command...' ) to see how the 'some shell command...' bit is prepared (since in your real world example that's got double quotes and stuff), and you can also go: sh -xc 'some shell command...' to see exactly what the shell is doing with the string you're giving it. All of this before throwing over the net with ssh. Cheers, -- Cameron Simpson <cs@xxxxxxxxxx> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows. - J. Robert Oppenheimer -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines