another more perlish way and perhaps of academic interest could be this using the IO::socket-modul

recip is listening on homer ...

tos@homer ~/tos/tmp
# cat recip 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Socket;

my $socket=new IO::Socket::INET (LocalPort => 1960,
                              Proto => 'tcp',
                              Listen => 5,
                              Reuse => 1,
                             );
die "could'nt create socket: $!" unless $socket;
while (my $new_socket = $socket->accept()) {
  while (defined (my $buf = <$new_socket>)) {
    print $buf;
         $buf =~ /^ls/ && do { system ("ls") };
  }
}

close ($socket);
[download]

tos@VRANZ /cygdrive/t/tos/tmp
# cat sndr 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Socket;

my $socket=new IO::Socket::INET (PeerAddr => 'homer',
                              PeerPort => 1960,
                              Proto => 'tcp'
                             );
die "couldn't create socket: $!" unless $socket;

foreach (1..3) {
  print $socket "message $_\n";
  $socket->flush();
}
print $socket "ls\n";
$socket->flush();

close ($socket);
[download]

tos@VRANZ /cygdrive/t/tos/tmp
# perl sndr

tos@VRANZ /cygdrive/t/tos/tmp
#
[download]

tos@homer ~/tos/tmp
# perl recip
message 1
message 2
message 3
ls
recip  sndr  sndr~  x
[download]

greetings, tos

Here is a sample client-server:
SERVER:
#!/usr/bin/perl

use Net::EasyTCP;

$server = new Net::EasyTCP(
    host  =>  "localhost",
    mode  =>  "server",
    port  =>   2345,
    password => "ztest",
    donotcompress => 1,
#    donotencrypt => 1,
    welcome => "Hi! Wecome to the test server!\n",
    )
       || die "ERROR CREATING SERVER: $@\n";

$server->setcallback(
     data            =>      \&gotdata,
     connect         =>      \&connected,
     disconnect      =>      \&disconnected,
    )
     || die "ERROR SETTING CALLBACKS: $@\n";

$server->start() || die "ERROR STARTING SERVER: $@\n";
#################################################### 
sub gotdata() {
my $client = shift;
my $serial = $client->serial();
my $data = $client->data();
print "Client $serial sent me some data, sending it right back to them
+ again\n";
$client->send($data) || die "ERROR SENDING TO CLIENT: $@\n";
if ($data eq "QUIT") {
$client->close() || die "ERROR CLOSING CLIENT: $@\n";
}
elsif ($data eq "DIE") {
$server->stop() || die "ERROR STOPPING SERVER: $@\n";
}
}
##################################################### 
sub connected() {
my $client = shift;
my $serial = $client->serial();
print "Client $serial just connected\n";
}
################################################### 
sub disconnected() {
my $client = shift;
my $serial = $client->serial();
print "Client $serial just disconnected\n";
}
__END__


CLIENT:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::EasyTCP;

$client = new Net::EasyTCP(
mode            =>      "client",
host            =>      'localhost',
port            =>      2345,
password        =>      ztest
)
|| die "ERROR CREATING CLIENT: $@\n";

#Send and receive a simple string 
$client->send("HELLO THERE") || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n";
$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n";
print "$reply\n";

#Send and receive complex objects/strings/arrays/hashes by reference 
#%hash = ("to be or" => "not to be" , "just another" => "perl hacker")
+; 
#$client->send(\%hash) || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n"; 
#$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n"; 
#foreach (keys %{$reply}) { 
#print "Received key: $_ = $reply->{$_}\n"; 
#} 

#Send and receive large binary data 
#for (1..4096) { 
#for (0..255) { 
#$largedata .= chr($_); 
#} 
#} 
#$client->send($largedata) || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n"; 
#$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n"; 

#$client->close(); 
$client->send('Hello from Joe') || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n";
$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n";
print "$reply\n";

while(1){
$input = <STDIN>;
$client->send($input) || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n";
$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n";
print "$reply\n";
}
__END__
[download]

won't that be just as complex? Plus my server needs a keyfile in order to ssh in.

No, it won't be just as complex. Keyfile creation is dead simple anyway, just use the ssh-keygen command to generate a key and copy it to the remote host's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 file. Obviously running this as root is ill advised. If it's necessary for root to implement the file on the remote, you can do something like run a pickup script from cron on the remote that checks for a new file periodically.

~~
naChoZ