But anyways, I have tried the:

my $dig_output = issh("$user\@$host", "$cmd")
[download]

..and it prints out a zero???

Uhm... where did you get that from? It wasn't what I suggested... ;-)

My suggestion was to forego the use of Net::SSH and just use a qx() or backticks instead. Since all you want is the output from the one command, that might prove to be much easier.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";