How to execute a remote bash script from PHP

I need to execute a bash script on a remote web server from PHP. The request originates from web1 via PHP and needs to execute a bash script on another web server web2. web1 can SSH into web2 all local traffic, but doing SSH via PHP is really nasty, and running exec("ssh user@web2.mydomain.com ./bash_script") seems like a terrible idea for security. Also, trying to expose some sort of HTTP interface from a bash script seems like the wrong approach.

What is recommended? Are there any cross language and remote execution libraries or frameworks?

Thinking I could write a simple wrapper in Node.js that executes the bash script and lives on web2. web1 simply hits the node.js wrapper over HTTP.

Thanks.