alas monks I am totally confused by this one, it appears that Expect's logging functions do not opperate in a standard way. If I might prevail upon you to examine the code here and determine why the output here is as it is, logging things to places it I explicitly told it NOT to log to.
Here is the program I am testing this with
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Expect;
|++;

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n<html>";

my $username="testuser";
my $password="password";
my $host="localhost";
my $timeout=7;

my $exp = new Expect; # create our important expet object
    
telnet_login($username,$password,$host,\$exp);
    
$exp->expect($timeout,
             ['ncorrect', sub { print "<center>ERROR:<br>Login Incorre
+ct, check username or password</center>\n"; &html_stop; die;   }  ],
             [timeout =>
              sub {
                $exp->log_file("/dev/null");
                $exp->send("/bin/sh\n");

                $exp->send("/usr/bin/last -10 $username\n");

                $exp->log_file(\&formatoutput);

                $exp->send("/bin/cat /etc/passwd\n");
              }
             ],
            );
$exp->soft_close(); #gentially close this object, it has been nice to 
+us we hope


sub formatoutput {
  my $input = shift;

  chomp($input);
  $input =~ tr/\r//;
  $input =~ s/\n/<br>/g;

  unless( 
      ($input eq "\$ ") ||
      ($input eq "\/") ||      
      ($input eq "bin/sh") ||
      ($input eq "bin\/sh") ||
      ($input eq "/bin/sh") ||
      ($input eq "/bin/sh ") 
    )   # things not to print go in this ^ statement
   {
     print"<b>${input}</b><p>\n";
   }
}

sub telnet_login
{
    my ($username, $password, $host, $exp) = @_;
    my $TELNET = "/usr/bin/telnet";
    my $timeout = 7;

    $$exp->raw_pty(1);    #treat this terminal as a raw file
    $$exp->log_stdout(0); #do not show terminal output to STD Out
    $$exp->spawn("$TELNET $host") || die "Cannot open telnet\n"; # try
+ to startup $TELNET
    $$exp->expect($timeout,
                 ['ogin:', sub { $$exp->send("$username\n"); exp_conti
+nue; } ],
                 ['assword:', sub { $$exp->send("$password\n"); } ],
                 [timeout => sub { die "<center>ERROR: <BR>A timeout h
+ast occured at login</center>\n"; }  ],
                );
}

</html>

[download]
as you can tell from my code I am sending everything up until the cat'ing of /etc/passwd to /dev/null but that doesnt stop my output from looking like this:
bin/sh

testuser pts/5 localhost Mon Jun 16 09:16 still logged in

testuser pts/5 localhost Mon Jun 16 09:14 - 09:15 (00:00)
testuser pts/5 localhost Mon Jun 16 09:09 - 09:09 (00:00)

testuser pts/5 localhost Mon Jun 16 09:08 - 09:08 (00:00)
testuser pts/6 localhost Mon Jun 16 09:07 - 09:08 (00:00)
testuser pts/5 localhost Mon Jun 16 09:07 - 09:07 (00:00)

testuser pts/5 testuser Fri Jun 13 15:54 - 15:55 (00:00)

testuser pts/5 testuser Fri Jun 13 15:53 - 15:54 (00:00)
testuser pts/5 testuser Fri Jun 13 15:52 - 15:53 (00:00)
testuser pts/5 testuser Fri Jun 13 15:52 - 15:52 (00:00)

root:x:0:1::/:/sbin/sh
daemon:x:1:1::/:
bin:x:2:2::/usr/bin:
sys:x:3:3::/:
adm:x:4:4:Admin:/var/adm:
lp:x:71:8:Line Printer Admin:/usr/spool/lp:
uucp:x:5:5:uucp Admin:/usr/lib/uucp:
nuucp:x:9:9:uucp Admin:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico
listen:x:37:4:Network Admin:/usr/net/nls:
nobody:x:60001:60001:Nobody:/:
noaccess:x:60002:60002:No Access User:/:
nobody4:x:65534:65534:SunOS 4.x Nobody:/:
fast:x:204:1:FastTrack Server:/web:/bin/sh
postfix:x:100:1:postfix:/dev/null:/bin/false
vscan:x:1001:10:Amavis User:/usr/local/encap/amavis-perl-11:/bin/sh
sshd:x:22000:22000:SSHD privsep User:/var/empty:/bin/false

[download]
any thoughts as to why I get both the bin/sh and the last sent to my output?

In reply to phantom log from hell? by jcpunk

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