ssh with command…Plus the shell

Question

I\'d like a command that ssh\'es into a machine, runs a command (cd or execute a script or su), and then gives me the shell. Passing a command to ssh seems to always exit.

Answer 1

How about using the SendEnv option in ssh_config to send a specific environment option from your local machine to your remote machine followed up by checking for that environment variable in the remote host's configuration?

In your .ssh/special-config-file:

remotehost:
    SendEnv *

Your local script:

RUN_THIS_FIRST_COMMAND=blah
ssh -F special-config-file

Your remote .bash_profile:

if [ "$RUN_THIS_FIRST_COMMAND" != "" ] ; then
    $RUN_THIS_FIRST_COMMAND
fi

You might need to check some of these lines, I just threw this together from the man pages and haven't tried any of this before. Personally I don't like having to modify both my local and remote environment for this solution.