Now combine that with dsh (http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/software/dsh.html.en) and authorized_keys, you can _really_ get in trouble. dsh is similar to this Cluster SSH, but is appropriate for use in scripts, cron jobs, etc.

Example:

dsh -Mg all-machines -F 20 'do something'

-M: Prepend any line of output with the machine that emitted it

-g: runs the group all-machines (just a text file in etc/dsh/group)

-F 20: forks at most 20 copies of ssh in the background so you don't overload the server you're running this from

i suggest perusing the ssh man, then, as it seems likely that it has other capabilities you don't know about.

Like how SSH agent forwarding can allow you to hop from box to box with the SSH keys loaded onto your local machine's SSH agent? Found that one a few months ago, made me reflect on what I've been doing in life the past 10 years not thoroughly reading UNIX man pages.

Thanks for this one. You just added a few days to my life and helped push out the onset of carpal tunnel/arthritis. ~ http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/ssh-agent-forwarding.html

ssh is magic. checkout -X for X11 forwarding to run remote GUI apps, and -R which lets you set up a reverse SSH tunnel when you need to connect to a machine behind a firewall.

such a polite version of RTFM, i love you

Based on a similar reaction a few months ago, this will definitely change the way you go about system work.