Net::Telnet problem w/ escape sequences (control stream?)

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

I'm not sure what info is relevant here, so this may be a little verbose. I am trying to use Net::Telnet from:

perl, v5.8.0 built for sun4-solaris
SunOS 5.8 Generic_108528-15 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-250
[download]

HP-UX B.11.11 U 9000/800 (tc)
[download]

with the simple script

my $t = new Net::Telnet (Timeout => 30, Prompt => '/[:\$%#>]  $/');
$t->input_log(\*STDOUT);
$t->telnetmode(1);
$t->open($hostip);
$t->login($user, $pass);
[download]

Logon works. My problem is that after logon, the expected prompt doesn't show up in the input (which is the output of the remote server). Rather, I get a strange escape sequence like:

.^[ i^M ... ^M.^[* ... ^MTERM = (hp)
[download]

I'm supposing this is a control stream, but I can't find any reference to handling them in Net::Telnet except for telnetmode() which I explicitly turn on. (Turning it off causes logon to fail.) Prompt on the remote host is '$'.

Anyone see what I'm doing wrong, or how I can workaround the problem? TIA!

P.S. I would try Expect, but unfortunately it is not available everywhere I need to use this.

--Solo --
You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake; well, this could be it, sweetheart.

Comment on Net::Telnet problem w/ escape sequences (control stream?) Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Net::Telnet problem w/ escape sequences (control stream?) by sweetblood (Prior) on Jun 16, 2004 at 17:59 UTC
on my HP-UX ----- B.11.11 U 9000/800 I run the above code and have no problem. I suspect your trouble may be related to the .profile of the $user. The section of my .profile that sets up the term is as follows: # Set up the terminal: if [ "$TERM" = "" ] then eval ` tset -s -Q -m ':?hp' ` else eval ` tset -s -Q ` fi stty erase "^H" kill "^U" intr "^C" eof "^D" susp "^Z" stty hupcl ixon ixoff tabs [download] HTH Cheers Sweetblood	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Net::Telnet problem w/ escape sequences (control stream?) by Solo (Deacon) on Jun 16, 2004 at 19:00 UTC
Cool suggestion! I looked in the .profile (and .login) and saw the tset and stty commands as expected. I dug around and found another HPUX box to test on. This one worked. Adding a `print $t->cmd('uname -a');` to my snippet above gets me: `... login garbage ... .^[ i^M ^M.^[[ci^M ^M.^[*s1^^Qi^M ^M$ HP-UX --- B.11.00 U 9000/785 (tc)` [download] I see similar control sequences, but this one ends in the expected prompt, '$'. So I changed the prompt string to `'/(?:TERM = $hp$\|[:%\$#])\s?$/'` and it's working on the first server now. I need to figure out why under Net::Telnet's connection, the prompt is not being set properly. From /usr/bin/telnet I see '$' on both servers. --Solo -- You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake; well, this could be it, sweetheart.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Net::Telnet problem w/ escape sequences (control stream?) by Anonymous Monk on Jun 16, 2004 at 21:57 UTC
those are escape characters (bold,colors,etc) and the holdup is tset asking you to confirm the terminal type (hp) `# probably looks like tset ?hp # remove question mark to accept hp always tset hp # choose dumber terminal type to possibly rid self of those # nasty escape sequences tset dumb tset ansi` [download]	[reply] [d/l]