CloudBees action: Execute commands on a remote server through SSH

Use this action to connect to a remote server and execute commands via the Secure Shell Protocol (SSH).

All CloudBees action repositories are listed at CloudBees, Inc. on GitHub.

Inputs

Table 1. Input details
Input name	Data type	Required?	Description
`host`	String	Yes	SSH host address.
`username`	String	Yes	The SSH username.
`port`	String	No	SSH port number. Default is `22`.
`script`	String	Yes	The commands to be executed.
`key-path`	String	Required only if `password` is not specified.	The path to the SSH private key file.
`passphrase`	String	No	The SSH key passphrase.
`password`	String	Required only if `key-path` is not specified.	The SSH password.

Usage examples

Execute remote commands using an SSH private key

In your YAML file, add:

      - name: SSH with username and key
        uses: cloudbees-io/ssh-deploy-actions@v1
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SSH_HOST }}
          username: user1
          key_path: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          port: "22"
          script: whoami,pwd,echo "hello"▼

Execute remote commands using a password

In your YAML file, add:

      - name: SSH with username and password
        uses: cloudbees-io/ssh-deploy-actions@v1
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SSH_HOST }}
          username: testUser
          password: ${{ secrets.SSH_PASSWORD }}
          port: "22"
          script: whoami,pwd▼

Execute remote commands using a passphrase-protected key

In your YAML file, add:

      - name: SSH with username and passphrase-protected key
        uses: cloudbees-io/ssh-deploy-actions@v1
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SSH_HOST }}
          username: demoUser
          key_path: ${{ secrets.SSH_PP_KEY }}
          port: "22"
          passphrase: ${{ secrets.SSH_PP_KEY_PASSPHRASE }}
          script: pwd,echo "hello"▼

Execute chef cookbooks using the ssh-actions

Chef is an open-source configuration management tool that automates infrastructure provisioning and management by defining system configurations as code.

Chef works with three core components:

You require SSH access to the workstation to execute the knife commands and trigger the cookbooks on the nodes.

The platform user must provide a single workstation with pre-configured roles, knife bootstrap, and SSH configured. The communication between the workstation, server, and nodes must be verified and tested.

In your YAML file, add:

name: ssh-actions
apiVersion: automation.cloudbees.io/v1alpha1
kind: workflow
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - '**'
jobs:
  sshaction:
    steps:

      - name: executing-remote-commands-using-username-and-ssh-key
        #uses: cloudbees-io/ssh-deploy-actions@v1
        uses: cloudbees-io/ssh-deploy-actions-private@v1
        with:
          host: ec2-54-83-82-190.compute-1.amazonaws.com
          username: ${{ secrets.CHEF_WS_USER }}
          key_path: ${{ secrets.CHEF_WS_KEY }}
          port: "22"
          script: cd chef-repo/ && sudo knife ssh "name:*" 'sudo chef-client -o "recipe[nano_install]"' -x ec2-user -p 22 -i chefnode.pem▼

By executing the following command on the workstation, it will log in to the node machines through SSH and execute the chef-client command, which executes the cookbook:

sudo knife ssh "name:*" 'sudo chef-client -o "recipe[nano_install]"' -x ec2-user -p 22 -i chefnode.pem

For more information, refer to knife-ssh.