---
title: Exec
---

The `exec` subcommand can do some things that the configuration file can't do yet. The command `exec host` can execute commands on many hosts.

`exec host` takes the following arguments:

```sh
  -c, --commands strings   Accepts space-separated names of commands.
  -h, --help               help for host
  -m, --hosts strings      Accepts space-separated names of hosts.
```

The commands have to be defined in the config file. The hosts need to at least be in the ssh_config(5) file.

```sh
backy exec host [--commands command1 -commands command2 ... | -c command1 -c command2 ...] [--hosts host1 --hosts hosts2 ... | -m host1 -c host2 ...]  [flags]
```