I'd like to run a command over ssh from a windows box running using c#

Question

Note that this has to be on a windows box as I am using c# to access information about windows

(I need information from both a windows box and a linux box, plus I th

Answer 1

It is quite easy to call plink without the shell popping up.

The trick to not show a window is to set ProcessStartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true.
Add some error handling to this and you're done.

--- PlinkWrapper.cs ---

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace Stackoverflow_Test
{
    public class PlinkWrapper
    {
        private string host { get; set; }
        /// 

        /// Initializes the 
        /// Assumes the key for the user is already loaded in PageAnt.
        /// 
        /// The host, on format user@host
        public PlinkWrapper(string host)
        {
            this.host = host;
        }

        /// 

        /// Runs a command and returns the output lines in a List<string>.
        /// 
        /// The command to execute
        /// 
        public List RunCommand(string command)
        {
            List result = new List();

            ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("plink.exe");
            startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
            startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
            startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
            startInfo.Arguments = host + " " + command;
            using (Process p = new Process())
            {
                p.StartInfo = startInfo;
                p.Start();
                while (p.StandardOutput.Peek() >= 0)
                {
                    result.Add(p.StandardOutput.ReadLine());
                }
                p.WaitForExit();
            }

            return result;
        }
    }
}

--- END PlinkWrapper.cs ---

Call it like

PlinkWrapper plink = new PlinkWrapper("albin@mazarin");
foreach (var str in plink.RunCommand("pwd"))
    Console.WriteLine("> " + str);

and the output will be like

> /home/albin

The nice thing with plink is that it is well proven and integrates well with pageant.