SSH automation in Bash Scripting - Mini Project: Build & Apply

SSH Automation with Bash Scripting

📖 Scenario: You are managing multiple remote servers and want to automate running a simple command on them using SSH. This will save you time and avoid typing the same commands repeatedly.

🎯 Goal: Create a bash script that stores a list of server IPs, sets a username variable, loops over the servers to run a command via SSH, and prints the output for each server.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a bash array called servers with three IP addresses

Create a variable called user with the SSH username

Use a for loop with variable server to iterate over servers

Run ssh command to execute hostname on each server

Print the server IP and its hostname output

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

System administrators often need to run commands on many servers. Automating SSH commands saves time and reduces errors.

💼 Career

Knowing how to automate SSH tasks with bash scripting is a valuable skill for roles in IT support, DevOps, and system administration.

1

Create the list of servers

Create a bash array called servers with these exact IP addresses: 192.168.1.10, 192.168.1.20, and 192.168.1.30.

Bash Scripting

# Create the servers array with the given IPs
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use parentheses () to create a bash array and double quotes "" around each IP.

2

Set the SSH username

Create a variable called user and set it to the exact string admin.

Bash Scripting

servers=("192.168.1.10" "192.168.1.20" "192.168.1.30")
# Set the SSH username variable user
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the string admin to the variable user using = and quotes.

3

Loop over servers and run SSH command

Use a for loop with variable server to iterate over servers. Inside the loop, run the SSH command ssh $user@$server hostname and store the output in a variable called host_name.

Bash Scripting

servers=("192.168.1.10" "192.168.1.20" "192.168.1.30")
user="admin"
# Loop over servers and run ssh hostname command
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use for server in "${servers[@]}" to loop. Use $(ssh "$user@$server" hostname) to capture output.

4

Print the server and hostname output

Inside the for loop, add a echo statement to print: Server: $server, Hostname: $host_name.

Bash Scripting

servers=("192.168.1.10" "192.168.1.20" "192.168.1.30")
user="admin"
for server in "${servers[@]}"; do
    host_name=$(ssh "$user@$server" hostname)
    # Print server and hostname
    # Your code here
done

Need a hint?

Use echo "Server: $server, Hostname: $host_name" inside the loop to print the output.