Sultan SSH Examples

This tutorial will go through various examples to help in better understanding how to use Sultan over SSH. Each example will build on the lessons learned from the previous examples.

WARNING * WARNING * WARNING

When you’re using Sultan, you are running commands directly on your local shell, so please, do not run untested and untrusted code. You are taking the risk if you are running untrusted code.

Sultan runs POpen with shell=True, and according to Python documentation, this can be a security hazard if combined with untrusted input. More information can be found here:

• Python 2: https://docs.python.org/2/library/subprocess.html#frequently-used-arguments
• Python 3: https://docs.python.org/3/library/subprocess.html#frequently-used-arguments

Example 1: SSH to Remote Host as the Current User

By default, you can simply specify the host to sultan, and calling the commands like you normally do. This uses the username of the user who is executing the script, and connects you to the remote host.

from sultan.api import Sultan

with Sultan.load(hostname='aeroxis.com') as sultan:
    s.yum('install', '-y', 'tree').run()

Sultan will connect to the remote host, and run yum install -y tree. This is what is passed to your shell to execute the command (assuming your username is davydany):

ssh davydany@aeroxis.com 'yum install -y tree;'

Example 2: SSH to Remote Host as a Different User

You can specify a different user to execute the remote commands by using the user parameter, like this:

with Sultan.load(user='elon.musk', hostname='aeroxis.com') as s:
    s.yum('install', '-y', 'tree').run()

And this will execute:

ssh elon.musk@aeroxis.com 'yum install -y tree;'

Example 3: Passing Additional Options (Port)

Added in v0.6

If you need to pass additional options for the port, use the SSHConfig class to configure the SSH Connection.:

from sultan.api import Sultan, SSHConfig

port = 2222
config = SSHConfig(port=port)
with Sultan.load(user='elon.musk',
                 hostname='aeroxis.com',
                 ssh_config=config) as s:
    s.yum('install', '-y', 'tree').run()

which will yield:

ssh -p 2222 elon.musk@aeroxis.com 'yum install -y tree;'

Example 4: Passing Additional Options (Identity File)

Added in v0.6

If you need to pass additional options for the port, use the SSHConfig class to configure the SSH Connection.:

from sultan.api import Sultan, SSHConfig

path_to_identity_file = '/home/elon.musk/keys/elon.musk.identity'
config = SSHConfig(identity_file=path_to_identity_file)
with Sultan.load(user='elon.musk',
                    hostname='aeroxis.com',
                    ssh_config=config) as s:
    s.yum('install', '-y', 'tree').run()

which will yield:

ssh -i /home/elon.musk/keys/elon.musk.identity elon.musk@aeroxis.com 'yum install -y tree;'