Is there a way to push shell config information when SSHing to a host?

Question

I know how to set the GNOME-terminals (or xterms!) prompt to green/red regarding the last exit code:

vi .bashrc

export PROMPT_COMMAND='PS1="`
if [[ \$? = "0" ]];
then echo "\\[\\033[0;32m\\]";
else echo "\\[\\033[0;31m\\]";
fi`[\u@\h \w]\[\e[m\] "'

export PS1

in picture:

but if I log in to a remote server then these color settings doesn't work!

How can I set it to work on remote terminals too? Unfortunately, I can't append the mentioned lines to the remote servers .bashrc.

Solution

You are trying to change the prompt displayed by the remote shell. This, of course, requires changing the configuration file of the remote shell, i.e. .bashrc.

If you don't want to change the file, and you really have to use that shared account (insert obligatory grumble about shared accounts), and you're logging in over ssh, you can (ab)use the command= option in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. A key with a command option is good only for running the specified command; but the command in the authorized_keys file runs with the environment variable SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND set to the command the user specified (empty for interactive sessions). So you can use something like this in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys:

command="HOME=$HOME/.HOME.lance;
         if [ -n \"$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND\" ]; then
           eval \"$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND\";
         else exec \"$SHELL\"; fi" ssh-rsa AAAA…== [email protected]

Note that I put line breaks above for legibility, but this actually needs to be all on one line in the authorized_keys file.

Then put your favorite configuration files in that .HOME.lance directory.

For occasional use, you can explicitly source a profile file or run any shell command. Pass the -t option to have a terminal if you want to run interactive commands.

ssh shared-account@server "LS_COLORS='$LS_COLORS' ls --color"
ssh -t shared-account@server '. ~/.profile.drew; exec zsh'

If you only want to edit or copy files on the remote machine, you can use a network filesystem such as SSHFS (for unix clients) or Tramp (for Emacs) and work from the comfort of your local environment.

Comments

[LanceBaynes]

:O sry, it doesn't work under xterm or gnome-terminal :O but thank you!

[Michael Mrozek]

The question says "no, I don't want to append the mentioned lines to the remote servers .bashrc", so apparently he just wants his local prompt settings to work on a remote machine without actually changing the remote prompt. I'm not sure if that's even possible, but that's why color isn't working

[tcoolspy]

@Michael: Thanks I missed that part of the question. I thought he had the stuff set but the color wasn't coming through. @Lance: Michael is right it simply doesn't work that way. See my edited answer for why.

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

@Michael: it is, kind of (copied here).