markd,
I may be completely off base here, but I don't believe what you are trying to do is possible the way you are trying to do it. When a machine is booting up, it typically doesn't have network connectivity. Your Expect functionality requires that. Once network connectivity is established, then you could do what you want.

If you are trying to interupt the boot sequence or use ctrl-x at some point prior to having network connectivity established, then you are going to need console connectivity. There is functionality in programs such as SecureCRT which allow you to script events to happen based off of text on the screen. Being that this is a remote machine the way to get remote console capability is typically through a terminal server.

If I completely misinterpreted what you are asking for - please let me know and I will try to help.

Cheers - L~R

In reply to Re: perl + expect + signals by Limbic~Region
in thread perl + expect + signals by markd

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.