Question

How do I return a value other than $? from a ssh session

for example:

x=5
echo "$x"
ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no root@hostname "x=10"
echo "$x"

This will print

5
5

But I need new value

5
10

Answer 1

Try this:

x=5 
echo "$x"
x=$(ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no root@hostname 'x=10; echo $x')
echo "$x"

What happens here is you capture the output of the command executed remotely, and assign that output to your local variable x. Notice, that I used single quotes, not double quotes, to quote the remote command: 'x=10; echo $x'. $x in a string in double quotes would get replaced by value of local x before being sent to the remote host, so you would get 5 printed by the remote command and assigned to your local x.