Running Applications on a Remote Host

Alatar has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,

My problem is this. I am setting up a test platform on a Linux Box (RH7) to be used for running tests on remote hosts (Sun Stations). Because the remote hosts are running older versions of Perl and are not in my direct control, I want to be able to set up my Test environment locally and run the tests on the remote hosts. My scripts are run from the local host, but call applications on the remote hosts. I need to be able to run the remote app and return it's return code all from within my Perl script. I've looked into using rsh from within backticks, but I'm not sure if it will return values, and I'm having trouble getting permissions on the remote host.

So firstly, am I going the wrong way about this? Is there a cool and useful mod for doing just this that I'm not aware of?

And secondly, if not, where can I look for more help on rsh as the man pages are pretty sparse.

Thanks,
Alatar

Comment on Running Applications on a Remote Host

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Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by suaveant (Parson) on Oct 01, 2001 at 20:30 UTC
If the remote systems have SSH I would suggest looking into Net::SSH::Perl by btrott - Ant - Some of my best work - Fish Dinner	[reply]
Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by thatguy (Parson) on Oct 01, 2001 at 20:40 UTC
You could always go a different route and use Expect. nodes to look into: How to split output using Expect.pm and Seeking Help w/ Expect.pm... found here. As for `rsh`, the NetBSD man page had some examples and a quite long man/help page here -p	[reply]
Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by MZSanford (Curate) on Oct 01, 2001 at 20:37 UTC
I have used rsh via backtick's before, and it usually (depending on OS) returns correct results, but, other ways i can think of right away are : use `Net::Telnet`, though i often find i buggy use `Net::SSH`, i have never used it, as i do not use SSH, but i think it could also help. "They shall not overcome. Whoever told them that the truth shall set them free was obviously and grossly unfamiliar with federal law." -- John Ashcroft	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by C-Keen (Monk) on Oct 01, 2001 at 20:54 UTC
I urge you not to use telnet or the r* utilities as they provide no real security mechanisms Regards, C-Keen	[reply]
Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by tommyw (Hermit) on Oct 01, 2001 at 20:47 UTC
In the absence of a better solution (and I hope there is one!) how about making your remote command also echo its exit status, and then popping that off the end of the captured output?	[reply]
Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by sheridan3003 (Beadle) on Oct 02, 2001 at 21:57 UTC
A way you might want to do this is setup a "small server" on the remote host to run your app and return the results. Look at IO::Socket. Create a server that accepts the connection then runs the application capturing all of the output. The when the application is done send the results back through the socket. If you are worried about security or encryption look at the Net::SSL package (I Believe) for doing encrypted socket communication. This is one way to approach the problem.	[reply]
Re: Re: Running Applications on a Remote Host by Fletch (Bishop) on Oct 03, 2001 at 02:43 UTC
You might also look into the `RPC::XML` or `SOAP::Lite` modules for creating your own server to handle requests.	[reply]