How to execute a process remotely using python

Question

I want to connect to and execute a process on a remote server using Python. I want to be able to get the return code and stderr (if any) of the process. Has anyone ever do

Answer 1

Use the ssh module called paramiko which was created for this purpose instead of using subprocess. Here's an example below:

from paramiko import SSHClient
client = SSHClient()
client.load_system_host_keys()
client.connect("hostname", username="user")
stdin, stdout, stderr = client.exec_command('program')
print "stderr: ", stderr.readlines()
print "pwd: ", stdout.readlines()

UPDATE: The example used to use the ssh module, but that is now deprecated and paramiko is the up-to-date module that provides ssh functionality in python.