running commands on client

[Mike]

I have looked around and cannot seem to locate an answer, so forgive me 
if it has been discussed to death.

I need to be able to do a
/usr/bin/mysql -e"flush tables with read lock;"
on the remote amanda client before I do a backup, and unlock it when I 
am done.  Other than just making a guess about when to start and end and 
using a cron job, is there a way to make amanda issue the commands I need.