gistfile1.py

#!/usr/bin/python

# All SSH libraries for Python are junk (2011-10-13).
# Too low-level (libssh2), too buggy (paramiko), too complicated
# (both), too poor in features (no use of the agent, for instance)

# Here is the right solution today:

import subprocess
import sys
import getpass


HOST="www.example.org"
PW = "getpass.getpass("sudo PW: ")
# WE'll probably want to use keys as well
# Ports are handled in ~/.ssh/config since we use OpenSSH
COMMAND="/bin/echo %s | sudo -S uname -a" % PW

ssh = subprocess.Popen(["ssh","-t", "%s" % HOST, COMMAND],
                       shell=False,
                       stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                       stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
result = ssh.stdout.readlines()
if result == []:
    error = ssh.stderr.readlines()
    print >>sys.stderr, "ERROR: %s" % error
else:
    print result