It appears to be a Net::SSH week! I would recommend Net::SSH2 over both Net::SSH::Perl (and it's loooong chain of dependencies) and Net::SSH (which is just a thin wrapper over the ssh command line program).

I'm beginning to think (stay back!) that with this week's questions about Net::SSH and petdance's blog about perl decentralizing, a real nice diversity site would be a *recommended* CPAN where someone (or some group) has pared down CPAN to what they consider the best selection(s). I know, I know ... "what's best for me, isn't best for you" ... "removing TMTOWTDI is bad" ... "it's not the perl way" ... "yadda yadda yadda." ... but it could have it's uses like 'Beginners CPAN' or 'Pure Perl' CPAN or 'Easy Cheesy' CPAN ... or my favorite 'Don't Make me Think' CPAN. (but then again, maybe this functionality all ready exists in the current CPAN and I'm just missing it).

Update: I'm not suggesting a CPAN replacement ... just a *filter* of CPAN ... under the covers, it would still be CPAN.