check if file exists on remote host with ssh

one line, proper quoting

ssh remote_host test -f "/path/to/file" && echo found || echo not found

In addition to the answers above, there's the shorthand way to do it:

ssh -q $HOST [[ -f $FILE_PATH ]] && echo "File exists" || echo "File does not exist";

-q is quiet mode, it will suppress warnings and messages.

As @Mat mentioned, one advantage of testing like this is that you can easily swap out the -f for any test operator you like: -nt, -d, -s etc...

Test Operators: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/fto.html

Here is a simple approach:

#!/bin/bash
USE_IP='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no [email protected]'

FILE_NAME=/home/user/file.txt

SSH_PASS='sshpass -p password-for-remote-machine'

if $SSH_PASS ssh $USE_IP stat $FILE_NAME \> /dev/null 2\>\&1
            then
                    echo "File exists"
            else
                    echo "File does not exist"

fi

You need to install sshpass on your machine to work it.

Can't get much simpler than this :)

ssh host "test -e /path/to/file"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    # your file exists
fi

As suggested by dimo414, this can be collapsed to:

if ssh host "test -e /path/to/file"; then
    # your file exists
fi