IF i understood your question, then you need openssh.

openssh has 2 parts: server and client. On the other boxes you have to run the server (make it to run on startup) and from your PC you have to run the client like:

ssh root@192.168.1.10

there are great security options for openssh, look at the manual for that.

good luck and i hope you know the base bash commands (otherwise look at the Bash group at the community section).

I agree.

download @ http://www.openssh.org/portable.html if you don't have it

edit: if you're trying to execute a command on multiple machines
there's some neat little for loops you can do with ssh to make that happen

ssh-keygen -t rsa

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@host (for each individual hosts)

ssh into the first machine
cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

(do this for each machine)

now make a list on the workstation for each host
hosts.dat
192.168.1.1
192.168.1.2
192.168.1.3 and so on

now,
for i in `cat hosts.dat`; do ssh root@$i commands..; done

I have done this in the past -- It may need some tweaks or may not -- but if it's something that looks like what you want to do, its worth exploring