ssh -p 3334 shmem@gateway -L1025:host.example.com:22 

##</code><code>##

ssh -p 1025 admin@localhost -L1026:192.168.123.2:975 -R993:localhost:1993

##</code><code>##

ssh -p 1026 wrxd15@localhost -L1027:192.168.254.2:22

##</code><code>##

ssc shmem@gateway:3334 admin@host.example.com wrxd15@192.168.123.2:975,-R993:localhost:1993 root@192.168.254.2

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# $Id: ssc,v 0.4 2006/09/28 20:31:37 shmem Exp $

use strict;
use Getopt::Std;

my (%o,@pids);
getopts('p:',\%o);

$o{'p'} ||= 1025; # default port range start

die "ssh chain - usage: ssc [-p] user\@host1[:sshport][,arg,arg,...] \\\n"
   ."                            user\@host1[:sshport][,arg,arg,...] \\\n"
   ."                            ...\n"
   ."where -p is of the forwarded ports range's start (default: $o{p})\n"
   unless @ARGV;

$o{'p'}++ while port_busy($o{'p'});

while (@ARGV) {
    my ($host,@args) = split/,/,shift;
    my ($port,$nexthop,$silent,$nextport);
    $port = $nextport = $nexthop = $silent = '';
    $host =~ s/:(\d+)// && ($port="-p $1");
    if(@ARGV) {
        my ($c,@args) = split/,/,$ARGV[0];
        my ($u,$host)    = split /\@/,$c;
        $host =~ s/:(\d+)// && ($nextport=$1);
        $nexthop = "-L$o{p}:$host:". ($nextport ? $nextport : 22);
        $ARGV[0] = "$u\@localhost:$o{p}";
        $ARGV[0] .= ','. join(',',@args);
        $o{'p'}++;
        $o{'p'}++ while port_busy($o{'p'});
        $silent = '-f -N';
    }
    if(@ARGV) {
        # clean up commandline
        (my $cmd = "ssh $silent $port $host $nexthop @args")
             =~ s/\s+/ /g;
        $cmd =~ s/\s+$//;
        # maybe I should just 'last' here
        # - not die - and kill all shells so far
        system $cmd and die "Can't '$cmd': $!\n";
        # since ssh - f does a fork, we must get it's pid via ps
        # XXX is there a portable way to do this?
        open(I,"ps ux |") or die "Can't run ps: $!\n";
        while(<I>) {
            /$cmd/ && /\b(\d+)\b/ && push @pids, $1;
        }
    } else {
        print "ssh $silent $port $host $nexthop @args\n";
        system  "ssh $silent $port $host $nexthop @args";
    }
}

# reap all my shells
kill 15,$_ for reverse @pids;

# XXX is there a portable way to check for busy ports?
sub port_busy { system("lsof -i :$_[0] >/dev/null") ? 0 : 1 }