Ok, I'm officially cancelling the flogreader alert. I found the answer to my question while hitting Google Groups searching for something else. The working script is below: 






if [[ $1 == "" || $1 == "ftp" ]];

then

  sftp -o Port=2048 luser@localhost

else

  ssh -o Port=2048 luser@localhost

fi

I haven't a clue why 2 [[ ]] are called for nor why the single | "worked" before, but the script above executes perfectly devoid of any erro messages.