[tlug] Auto fill password in shell script?

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

So, I had this really elegant back up system all set up that would log
into my various web servers, make MySQL dumps, collect logs, tar
files... it's pretty nice.

Except... at one point it requires me to log in by SSH to execute some
commands. Which I can do, except that I need to enter a password.

This doesn't fly for setting up a cron job to execute this script on a
regular basis.

I tried to see if I could get my main web hosting service to set up a
key pair so I could log in via SSH without a password, like I do on my LAN.

But no, they have set their system up to not allow that. Can't say I
blame them. I can see how that might be a security risk.

But it ruins my beautiful back up plans!

So I was wondering... can I store the password somewhere and have it
auto respond to the password request to the server from within my shell
script that does all this wonderful backing up?

If so, that would be awesome.

Any tips or advice would be most appreciated.

-- 
Dave M G