Ok,  so, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to restart mySQL and Apache on a remote server. This restarts a balky web site hosted by Apache, and also restarts a mySQL server which is used for a back-end for Drupal.

You want to execute this from your Windows computer.

The target computer runs CentOS 5.6 This is an (ancient) Red Hat Linux derivative, running (ancient) mySQL and Apache.

I ended up using PLink called from a Windows .CMD file to execute a bash shell script.  The shell script looks like this:

Rebootolator

#!/bin/bash -p
# Rebootolator – Reboots Apache and mySQL on a target Server
# LK Microdesign June 25, 2014
TERM=”xterm”
export TERM
clear
echo
echo ‘Rebooting Apache and mySQL on myServer’
echo ‘———————————–‘
echo ‘Restarting mySQL’
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
echo ”
echo ‘Restarting the Apache web server.’
/etc/init.d/mysqld restart
echo ‘Reboot procedure completed’


Note this script is not stored on the target server, but simply put in the same folder as the windows cmd file on my windows box.  

Now for the Windows command file: 

Reboot.CMD

:: Batch file to restart services on myServer
:: Restarts mySQL and httpd 
:: Uses the Rebootolator shell script
:: LK/Microdesign August 12, 2014  
@echo off
cls
echo. 
echo.
plink -ssh username@192.168.xxx.xxx -m rebootolator.sh -pw mypass
echo.
echo.

pause >nul | echo Press any key to exit. 

So, lets deconstruct the Windows Reboot.CMD file.
The first four lines are comment lines. Turns out, you can use two colons to preface a comment in Windows, (who knew?) instead of REM.
Line 5 turns off output to the screen.
Line 6 clears the screen.
Line 7 and 8 put in blank lines.
All the work happens on line 9, using the PLINK command. PLINK is the command line version of PUTTY, a free open source terminal program for Windows workstations. Both PLINK and PUTTY are pretty wonderful and highly recommended if you need to access Linux machines from Windows.
-ssh means “use the secure socket layer protocol to log into this machine”
username@192.168.xxx.xxx is a administrator’s account on the target machine,  probably the root account.
-m rebootolator.sh is the name of the shell script (above) that needs to run on the target machine.
-pw mypass is the password for the account used to log into the machine.

Deconstructing the Rebootolator.sh script:
#!/bin/bash -p  just means this is a BASH script
The two commands that actually restart the mySQL server, and the Apache server are: 
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
/etc/init.d/mysqld restart

The rest, (the echo commands) write out what  is happening at the command line. The Term command is my attempt to avoid a harmless error message that occurs when the script starts to execute.

Since I didn’t realize I could host the Rebootolator.sh script in my Windows folder, I originally though I’d have to log into one Linux box, and then execute the script on the target box.  Turned out the whole thing was simpler using PLINK, which is the equivalent of SSH and SSHPASS programs used to access remote machines from the Linux command line.