Fellow monks,


I have run into an annoyance with a script that I am working on that is bedeviling me. Just to give you an idea of what I am up to, at the very highest functional level what the script does is as follows:

• SCP some flat text files (CSV format) from two different machines that contain useful information I am going to use later in the process of creating my report
• SCP some log files from two different machines to be corrolated
• Marry the results and create two different reports
• Email the results to a distribution list

The report is being run out of cron.

Where I am running into trouble randomly is in the steps where Net::SCP::Expect is being used to gather the information from the various machines. With no rhyme or reason and for randdom hosts I get the following spew back and my script dies:

Uncaught exception from user code:                Error - last line re
+turned was: [the hosts's remote passord deleted from here] /usr/local
+/software/perl-5.8.3/lib/site_perl/5.8.3/Expect.pm line 733          
+      Net::SCP::Expect::__ANON__('Expect=GLOB(0x9cd4b8)') called at /
+usr/local/software/perl-5.8.3/lib/site_perl/5.8.3/Expect.pm line 733 
+               Expect::_multi_expect('undef','undef','ARRAY(0x9cd8b4)
+') called at /usr/local/software/perl-5.8.3/lib/site_perl/5.8.3/Expec
+t.pm line 536                Expect::expect('Expect=GLOB(0x9cd4b8)','
+undef','ARRAY(0x9cd6ec)','ARRAY(0x9cd704)','ARRAY(0x9cd740)') called 
+at /usr/local/software/perl-5.8.3/lib/site_perl/5.8.3/Net/SCP/Expect.
+pm line 225                Net::SCP::Expect::scp('Net::SCP::Expect=HA
+SH(0x9cd224)','root@xeng-wiz.msnyuhealth.org:/var/adm/messages','/tmp
+/messages') called at RemFile.pm line 170                RemFile::ope
+nForRead('RemFile=HASH(0x9cd194)') called at ./make2745Report.pl line
+ 214                main::loadFiles('HASH(0x7e150c)') called at ./mak
+e2745Report.pl line 184                main::createReport('HASH(0x7e1
+50c)') called at ./make2745Report.pl line 84
[download]

When I run the report manually from an interactive terminal session it never breaks.

Has anybody elee run into this? Like I said above it does not happen every time, just when I'm not near my computer so I can run the report manually. Very annoying.

Obligatory platform/Perl version information:

$ uname -a
SunOS foo 5.8 Generic_108528-15 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-250
$ perl -v
 
This is perl, v5.8.3 built for sun4-solaris
 
Copyright 1987-2003, Larry Wall
 
Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License
+ or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source ki
+t.
 
Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found 
+on
this system using `man perl' or `perldoc perl'.  If you have access to
+ the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.com/, the Perl Home Pa
+ge.
[download]

The version of {cpan://Net::SCP::Expect] is whatever the latest version on CPAN is. I just ran an update to make damn sure.