How to Execute su -c Over SSH

sshsuunix

I am trying to check the BIOS version of a server over SSH, a command that requires root privileges:

ssh remote-server su -c dmidecode

but this of course fails with the error:

standard in must be a tty

How do I make this work? I cannot use sudo, and when I try to log in as root@remote-server, it won't accept the password I use for the 'su' command. I am using RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.

Best Answer

Use -t to force ssh to allocate a tty:

ssh -t -t remote-user su -c dmidecode

You might also consider allowing root to ssh directly. If you're using public key authentication, this may be more secure as you won't be passing a password around. If you decide to do this, consider blocking root logins from anywhere except your trusted IP addresses by putting the following in /etc/security/access.conf:

+ : root : 10.20.30.40
- : root : ALL EXCEPT LOCAL

and make sure UsePAM isn't disabled in sshd_config

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