"I'm not worried about security" is one of the scariest phrases in the lexicon. Run your plan past your admin and see what he says about it. "I've considered the situation and security concerns have been addressed" is a far better response. Keep in mind that you'll be sending your password unencrypted, and it will have to be listed as plain text in your program, accessible to anyone who cares to look. Imagine what the weird intern might do with that information, especially when his internship is over.

Think about what your program will be used for and what servers it will run on. Can you use rsh or rcp instead of telnet? Also, you're not doing whatever you're doing as root are you? Don't if you can avoid it. If possible, require that the password be passed in as an argument at invocation. It's far better than putting the root password to a cluster of servers as plain text in a script that may get passed around like a fattie at Snoop Dogg's house.

Even if you're working on an isolated LAN, you have to consider what happens if someone gains access to the LAN. It's far better to have a second (or third) line of defense than to have one password give access to the whole system.

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

In reply to Re: Perl's Telnet vs. Expect Module by logan
in thread Perl's Telnet vs. Expect Module by TASdvlper

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