On Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 01:07:31PM -0800, Peter Blajev wrote: > echo " server2 > server2" | \ > while read confLine; do > echo "--> $confLine" > ssh peter@$confLine ls > echo "--> END $confLine" > done > The "for" loop in the script above will run twice but the "while" loop > below it will run only once. > Any idea what would cause the ssh command to break the while loop? "ssh" is reading from stdin and passing the data over to the remote machine. You can test this with ssh peter@$confLine 'read x ; echo we got $x' To stop it doing this, use the "-n" flag ssh -n peter@$confLine ls -- rgds Stephen