[lanstin]

If I can't fix it in like 3 tries, I switch to my local shell script having the script to run on the remote end be in a HEREDOC and just scp it it over and then ssh exec it. Inside the HEREDOC, it's a sane environment.

[theK]

Copying over the commands to run also has another added benefit, you have quite good documentation of what was run and when. Also it allows one to easily run a failing thing again (in case output gets mangled in the executing script)

[lanstin]

And idempotency is essential for shell scripts that alter state. Otherwise you have to keep track of where failures happened.

[septune]

wrap it in base64 then cat it | ssh « base64 -d | bash »