Shell Programming and Scripting

I am writing a script and need to get the hostname of the remote server in order to zip that file... the syntax in which the file is named is "hostname.html."
This is the line I am trying to use

Code:

ssh $host "/bin/gzip /tmp/`hostname`.html" >> $PATH_TMP/Linux_cfg2html.log

but whenever I run it `hostname` is replaced for the value in my local server and not the remote server, how can I fix this.

Try this:

Code:

ssh "$host" '/bin/gzip /tmp/"$(hostname)".html' >> "$PATH_TMP"/Linux_cfg2html.log

If you're using the old Bourne shell:

Code:

ssh "$host" '/bin/gzip /tmp/`hostname`.html' >> "$PATH_TMP"/Linux_cfg2html.log

excellent, I will consider single quotes next time, thank you!!

---------- Post updated at 12:10 PM ---------- Previous update was at 11:37 AM ----------

what about the syntax for this line...

Code:

scp -p $host:/tmp/`hostname`.html.gz $PATH_TMP/servers/Linux/ >> $PATH_TMP/Linux_cfg2html.log

where I need `hostname` to be the remote hostname, I am getting the same problem of the local value.
Thanks

scp is not a shell, it won't work that way. scp doesn't print files to standard output, either.

There's the old trick of ssh cat filename > localfile though:

Try

Code:

ssh username@host 'cat /tmp/`hostname`.html.gz' > /path/to/local/file

Single quotes are to prevent ` from being evaulated in your local shell. One layer of quotes gets stripped off when you ssh, so it gets it without.

that is not what i want to do...

I know the name and format of the file i need scp because I am copying that file from the remote server to my local server, that is why I am using scp.

I need the value of "hostname" because that is the name of the file (server1.html)

If not how can I get the hostname of the remote server and store it in a variable so that I can use it locally on my script.

No you don't. You know the server knows, but scp doesn't run commands on the server so it can't figure out what `hostname` means. It can't do that because scp is not a shell. You can copy a file with ssh, using the trick I showed you. cat will spew the file to standard output on the remote host -- which goes into the ssh connection. Travelling across the ssh connection, it returns to your local machine -- where you can redirect it into a local file. This works fine even for binary files.

Code:

ssh username@host 'cat /path/to/remote/file' > /path/to/local/file

You can also do more elaborate piping to transfer multiple files with permissions:

Code:

ssh username@host 'tar -cf - /path/to/remote/files' | tar -xf - -C /path/to/local/dir/

What are you trying to do? You already know the hostname... you use it to connect to the host.

Code:

scp -p $host:/tmp/$host.html.gz ...