Running Multiple PHP SSH2 Script

Question

I have a shop having about 10 Macs. Current I am able to shutdown/restart them remotely through PHP SSH2 function using this code

<?php
                include('Net/SSH2.php');

                $server = "hostname";
                $username = "user";
                $password = "pwd";
                $command = "sudo shutdown -r now";

                $ssh = new Net_SSH2($server);
                if (!$ssh->login($username, $password)) {
                    exit('Login Failed');
                }

                echo $ssh->exec($command);
                echo "Sucessfully Restarted blah blah blah";
            ?>

But in order to shutdown/restart 10 of the terminals, I have to run 10 different script to achieve that. Is there any methods where I can connect to multiple server and run the same command?

Answer 1

You could store the hostnames and credentials in a multi-dimensional array. This will allow you to iterate through each item using foreach and execute the required command on each host. Here's an example of what you'd need to do:

<?php
include('Net/SSH2.php');

$hosts = array(
    array(
        'hostname' => 'hostname1',
        'username' => 'user1',
        'password' => 'pwd1'
    ),
    array(
        'hostname' => 'hostname2',
        'username' => 'user2',
        'password' => 'pwd2'
    )
);

$command = "sudo shutdown -r now";

foreach ($hosts as $host) {
    $ssh = new Net_SSH2($host['hostname']);

    if (!$ssh->login($host['username'], $host['password'])) {
        echo "Login Failed for host '{$host['hostname']}'\n";

        continue;
    }

    echo $ssh->exec($command);
    echo "Sucessfully Restarted {$host['hostname']}\n";
}

Hope this helps.

On security: It's recommended you use SSH keys rather than usernames and passwords. Also, make sure you keep the macs on a network that is not open, for example, to customers, you should use a private network.