Assuming you get it installed, it looks like you should be able to cut and paste the example from the documentation, add the right username and password, and have it work.

You can use ssh itself if you have cygwin installed, but I don't think that is the solution you were looking for.

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

I downloaded Perl.pm (Net::SSH::Perl) module and tried to connect to remote cisco pix through ssh Following is my script



use Net::SSH::Perl;
$host="IP";
$username = "username";
$pass = "password";

my $ssh = Net::SSH::Perl->new("$host");
$ssh->login($username, $pass);
my($stdout, $stderr, $exit) = $ssh->cmd(sh access-list access_inside_i
+n);
print "output: $stdout\n";
print "Error: $stderr\n";
print "status: $exit\n";
[download]

But while installing GMP with nmake

perl Makefile.PL

nmake

nmake test

I got an error saying

'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'C:\WINNT\system32\cmd.exe' : return code '0x1' Stop.

what do i do now?

Thanks

Nalina

Edited by Chady -- added code tags.

cl is CL.EXE which is Microsofts C/C++ compiler which comes with VC++ but not Win32 per se. Or in english Microsoft don't ship a C compiler (cl.exe) with Win32. As a result you can't compile Perl modules THAT NEED COMPILING. Many modules are pure perl, and thus don't need compiling. However many modules use C for speed and do need compiling. For simplicity use ppm when possible. See:

A Guide to Installing Modules
A Practical Guide to Compiling C based Modules under ActiveState using Microsoft C++

cheers

tachyon

See tachyon's comment below for the right module.

On Windows, you want to use PPM instead of CPAN. CPAN only works if you have a full C compiler environment on your system, and most windows boxes don't. If you are using ActiveState Perl (most likely), you should use PPM, there is a FAQ to help get you started.

___________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

i've had problems getting perl to ssh to a Cisco.

it seems that Cisco's sshd is incompatible with Net::SSH::Perl. run both the module and the system ssh in verbose mode and you'll see that N:S:P opens two channels, one for a global-like session or some such, then another for each cmd that is sent. plain ssh only uses only one channel for a shell (or a command). i got far enough down in debugging to see that the first channel autenticates fine, but it seems the Cisco's sshd doesn't support more than a single channel, the second channel created for the cmd fails with some sort of 'out of resource' message.

my current solution is to use Expect and the system ssh command (which works fine).

i'll create a trouble ticket with Cisco for this issue once i pin it down and have some time to try again and take notes. (and make sure i'm not missing something)

this may or may not help...

package NE;
use base 'Expect';

# from Net::Telnet::Cisco
$prompt = qr/(?m:^[\w.-]+\s?(?:\(config[^\)]*\))?\s?[\$#>]\s?(?:\(enab
+le\))?\s*$)/;

sub cmd {
    my ( $exp, $cmd ) = @_;
    $exp->print($cmd, "\n");
    $exp->expect( 10, -re => $prompt )
      or return;
    $out = $exp->before;
    $match = $exp->match;
    $out =~ s/^$cmd\r?\n//;
    return $out;
}

sub login {
    my ( $exp, $user, $pass ) = @_;
    $exp->expect( 10,
        [ qr/[Pp]assword:\s*/, sub { my $exp = shift;
            $exp->print($pass, "\n");
            exp_continue;
        }],
        [ qr/[Uu]sername:\s*/, sub { my $exp = shift;
            $exp->print($user, "\n");
            exp_continue;
        }],
        -re => $prompt,
    );
}

sub enable {
    my ( $exp, $pass ) = @_;
    $exp->print("enable", "\n");
    $exp->login( '', $pass );
}


package main;
#$Expect::Debug = 1;
$Expect::Log_Stdout = 0;

my $exp = NE->new();

$exp->spawn(qw| /usr/bin/ssh -2 -l admin myrouter |)
  or die "spawn: $!\n";

$exp->login( '', "******" );
$exp->enable( "**********" );

my ( $out );
$exp->cmd( "terminal length 0" );
( $out ) = $exp->cmd( "show running-config" );
print $out;
$exp->cmd( "exit" );
$exp->soft_close();

exit;
[download]

another possibility yet to be investigated is using Net::SSH::Perl for the connection, trying to fish out the filhandle that it creates and pass it to Net::Telnet::Cisco directly and use Net::Telnet::Cisco for the cmd handling. this will probably take some hacking as it looks like the first Net::SSH::Perl channel is opened with different parameters than the channels opened for the commands.

another possibility might be the Web interface. i haven't played with that at all yet.

The ssh implementation on the PIX is braindead. I'm having trouble with one of these beasts right now (not SSH-related). Cisco PIX 501 is such a piece of s*** that I can hardly refraing from tearing it to pieces with a sledgehammer!

You'll have a hard time connecting even from the command line. Try that first before you start coding in Perl. First, you need to generate a RSA host key on the beast, and enable SSH inbound connections. Make sure you replace the network address and mask with yours. At the serial console:

pixfirewall> enable
Password: 
pixfirewall# conf t
pixfirewall(config)#
pixfirewall(config)# ca generate rsa key 512
Keypair generation process begin.
Success.
pixfirewall(config)# ssh 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside
pixfirewall(config)# write mem
[download]

Then try connecting from the command line from a host matching the net address above (example using OpenSSH):

$ ssh -1 -c 3des -l pix 192.168.1.1
pix@192.168.1.1's password: <type 'cisco' for default>
Type help or '?' for a list of available commands.
pixfirewall>
[download]

I realize this reply is slightly OT, but I feel sympathy for the creatures who have to deal with these abominations. The suffering need to help each other! :)

Update: the OP writes:

I could manually establish ssh connection to it using the s/w 'putty' & could execute commands on it.

I was that mad at the beast that I didn't see that. Ignore.