Do not use \n to end the command. Some server will fail to process. Use always the standard for PHP end of line: PHP_EOL

'suri at suribala dot com"'s example should be modified as follows (also change the double quotes to single, for better performance):

<?php

$con=ssh2_connect('192.168.0.1', 22);
ssh2_auth_password($con, 'user', 'password');
$shell=ssh2_shell($con, 'xterm');
fwrite( $shell, 'cd /dir_one;'.PHP_EOL);
fwrite( $shell, 'ls -la;'.PHP_EOL);
fwrite( $shell, 'cd /dir_two;'.PHP_EOL);
fwrite( $shell, 'ls -la;'.PHP_EOL);

?>

Cheers,

Pimmy

// Connection to SSH server
        echo "Connexion SSH ";
        if (!($resource=@ssh2_connect("192.168.0.1"))) {
                echo "[FAILED]<br />";
                exit(1);
        }
        echo "[OK]<br />";
                                                                                                                                                             
        // Authentification by login/passwd
        echo "Authentification ";
        if (!@ssh2_auth_password($resource,"root","your_password")) {
                echo "[FAILED]<br />";
                exit(1);
        }
        echo "[OK]<br />";
                                                                                                                                                             
        // We need a shell
        echo "Shell stdio ";
        if (!($stdio = @ssh2_shell($resource,"xterm"))) {
                echo "[FAILED]<br />";
                exit(1);
        }
        echo "[OK]<br />";
                                                                                                                                                             
        // Execution of any command
        // Be careful to add an '\n' at the  end of the command
        $command = "/bin/ls /tmp\n";
        fwrite($stdio,$command);
                                                                                                                                                             
        // IMPORTANT
        // For some obscur reasons, just after ur command, u need to make a sleep to be sure, that the command has reached the server and is running
        sleep(1);
        
        // Then u can fetch the stream to see what happens on stdio
        while($line = fgets($stdio)) {
                flush();
                echo $line."<br />";
        }
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
        // It's always cleaner to close all stream
        fclose($stdio);

I truly hope i'll help someone :)

Keep in mind that when using ssh2_shell, the remote system's EOL may not be the same as PHP's EOL, so it may not be safe to use PHP_EOL. The native EOL for Windows is \r\n, while Unix is typically merely \n, and classic Mac for some reason is \r.

If you're running PHP on Windows (\r\n) and sshing into a Unix box (\n) you're going to end up sending extra lines. My experience so far is that it just acts as though you typed nothing, which may cause issues with password prompts.

Oh, and \n\r? Don't do that. Nobody does that.

In my case the ssh2_shell doesn't work every time. There were many problems:
- If I use stream_get_contents, the command(s) never executed
- with while ($buf = fgets...) the loop never stops
- without sleep(1) before stream_set_blocking, the command wasn't execute every time. Anyone knows why?
That's what I made, and it works - but I think it isn't what it should be:
<?php
        $strCommand = 'tar -C /path/to/extract -xjf /path/from/file.tar.bz2';
        $sshStream = ssh2_shell($this->sshSession, 'xterm', null, 120, 24, SSH2_TERM_UNIT_CHARS); 
        fwrite($sshStream, $strCommand . PHP_EOL);
        sleep(1);
        stream_set_blocking($sshStream, true);
        $sshUntarRetval = "";
        while ($buf = fgets($sshStream,4096)) {
        flush();
            $sshUntarRetval .= $buf;
            if (strpos($buf, 'tar -C') !== false)
            {
                break;
            }
        }
        fclose($sshStream);
?>

In response to webmaster at spectreanime dot com:

"For some obscur reasons, just after ur command, u need to make a sleep to be sure, that the command has reached the server and is running"

Actually what you must do is set the blocking of the string to true, so it waits until the server sends data to the STDOUT before echoing it. 

So, instead of:

sleep(1);

Just do:

stream_set_blocking($stdio, true);

Best regards,

To run a shell script with all the variables that you would have when logged in interactively add bash -l or sh --login infront of your command.  The script I use creates a shell script, copies the script to the box with ssh2_scp_send, then executes the script with ssh2_exec.  Hope this helps somebody.

<?php

//Example

$script1 = "bash -l /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart";

$connection = ssh2_connect('shell.example.com', 22);
ssh2_auth_password($connection, 'username', 'password');

$stream = ssh2_exec($connection, $script1);
?>

I get it a work script for multiple commands. This script return  output of each command on array, indexed by the "command".

Att: ssh2_cmd() dont work for multiple commands, thus ssh2_shell(). Attencion for de EOL on witch type of SO. I used "\n" at the end of witch command, but maybe other options like "<br>, ; , etc);

        $connection = ssh2_connect($input_host_ip, 22);

        if (false === $connection) {
                error_log("ERROR função SSH_UMTELECOM: Connection failed!\n",3,$log_file);
                exit();
        }else{
                if($debugar){error_log("SSH_UMTELECOM: Connection success to $input_host_ip!\n",3,$log_file);}

                $auth = @ssh2_auth_password($connection, $user, $pass);
                if (false === $auth) {
                        error_log("ERROR função SSH_UMTELECOM: Authentication failed on $input_host_ip (user: $user)!\n",3,$log_file);
                        exit();
                }else{
                        if($debugar){error_log("SSH_UMTELECOM: Authentication success to $input_host_ip!\n",3,$log_file);}

                        error_log("Iniciando Stream: $connection\n",3,$log_file);
                        $output_array = array();
                        $shell = ssh2_shell($connection, 'vt100');

                        foreach($input_cmd as $cmd){
                                if($debugar){error_log("shell: $cmd\n",3,$log_file);}
                                $output_stream = ""; # Limpa variável para cada interação
                                fwrite($shell, "$cmd\n"); # Não esquecer o "\n" ao término de cada comando
                                #stream_set_blocking($shell, true); # Não funciona, aguarda infinitamente
                                sleep(2); # 2 segundos para redes com alta latência
                                while($output_streams = fgets($shell)){
                                        $output_stream .= $output_streams;
                                        flush();# Limpa o conteúdo para a próxima interação
                                }
                                $output_array[] = $output_stream; # Reune cada retorno em seu respectivo comando
                        }
                        fclose($shell); # Gracius logout from shell
                }# Fim if false === $auth
        }# Fim if false === $conenection

Hi,

we could also use shell_exec to execute multiple related commands
separated by semicolon (;).

 And I figured out  problem that sometimes arise related to the execution of complex java c/c++ programs. All we need to do is to set the required environment variables. I have a environment variable in .bash_profile. This variable would be set when I log into my account normally through shell. But when we use ssh2_connect(), the environment variables in the .bash_profile are not set, all we need to do is export the required environment variables with shell_exec();

example:

$conn = ssh2_connect($ipaddress);
ssh2_auth_password($conn,$username,$passwd);
$cmd1="/path/to/program1";
$cmd2="/path/to/program2";
$env1="export Variable_name1=path1";
$env2="export Variable_name2=path2" 
$stream = ssh2_exec($connection,"$env1; $env2; $cmd1; $cmd2");//this would execute all the //commands and return 
// stream 
stream_set_blocking($stream, true);
while($o=fgets($stream)){
echo $o.'<br>';
}

...
...

Thanks,
Vikram Gopu .
http:\\my.lsu.edu/vgopu1

Using ssh_exec, one could execute only one command at a time. However, ssh_shell, offers greater flexibility.

Here is an example:

<?php

$con=ssh2_connect('192.168.0.1', 22);
ssh2_auth_password($con, "user", "password");
$shell=ssh2_shell($con, 'xterm');
fwrite( $shell, "cd /dir_one\n");
fwrite( $shell, "ls -la\n");
fwrite( $shell, "cd /dir_two\n");
fwrite( $shell, "ls -la\n");

?>

Thanks Sara for your implementation and your help !