$ssh = Net::SSH::Perl->new($host,debug=>true,options => ["ConnectTimeout=5","StrictHostKeyChecking=no"]);
    $ssh_conf="$ENV{'HOME'}/.ssh/config";
    $cfg = Net::SSH::Perl::Config->new($host);
    $cfg->read_config($ssh_conf);
    if (! $USERNAME){
    	$USER=$cfg->get('user');
    }
    eval{$ssh->login($USER);};
   	if ($@){
       	print "Unable to connect to $host\n$@\n";
    }
    eval{($out, $err, $exit)=$ssh->cmd($exec_cmd);};print "Unable to execute: $exec_cmd\n" if $@;
  ###
  print "\n\nmade it this far\n\n";
  ###
    if ($out){
   		print $out;
    } else {
    	print "$err\n$exit";
    }