how to force rsh to exit with status of remote command

[Andy Behrens]

rodgers at maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.) writes:
>The rsh always seems to exit with a status of 0, even if the command
> on the remote hosts fails.

This question gets asked fairly often.  Here's a replacement for rsh
that you should install on the local machine. The remote machine
doesn't need to be changed provided you are running a fairly "normal"
shell.

Thanks to Maarten Litmaath for this little gem.

------------------------------ CUT HERE ------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# @(#)ersh 2.4 91/01/30 Maarten Litmaath
# This rsh front-end returns the exit status of the remote command.
# It works OK with sh/csh-compatible shells on the remote (!) side.
# If there is no remote command present, /usr/ucb/rlogin is invoked.
# Usage: see rsh(1).

RSH=/usr/ucb/rsh
RLOGIN=/usr/ucb/rlogin

hostname=
lflag=
nflag=
user=

case $1 in
-l)
	;;
*)
	hostname=$1
	shift
esac

case $1 in
-l)
	lflag=-l
	user=$2
	shift 2
esac

case $1 in
-n)
	nflag=-n
	shift
esac

case $hostname in
'')
	hostname=$1
	shift
esac

case $# in
0)
	exec $RLOGIN $lflag ${user+"$user"} "$hostname"
esac

AWK='
	NR > 1 {
		print prev;
		prev = $0;
		prev1 = $1;
		prev2 = $2;
	}
	NR == 1 {
		prev = $0;
		prev1 = $1;
		prev2 = $2;
	}
	END {
		if (prev1 ~ /[0-9]*[0-9]0/)
			exit(prev1 / 10);
		if (prev1 == "0")
			exit(prev2);
		print prev;
		exit(1);
	}
'

exec 3>&1

$RSH "$hostname" $lflag ${user+"$user"} $nflag \
	"(${*-:}); sh -c '"'echo "$0 $1" >&2'\'' $?0 "$status"' \
	2>&1 >&3 3>&- | awk "$AWK" >&2 3>&-
--------------------------- END OF SCRIPT ---------------------------