TERM problems

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

Hi all!

I have a command line interface for my software that works perfectly fine when running from the computer it's installed on (Linux RH9.0). The program can work in shell mode if no arguments are supplied or can execute one command when arguments are given (as in the example).
When running from a client (other computer), it still works but outputs warning/error to the console:

# running from the computer it's installed on:
prompt> su - user -c "myprog exports view"

These are the current defined exports:

        Index     Status    Export

        0         active    /TestDir         (insecure,rw)
        1         active    /   (insecure,rw)

# running from the client machine:
client prompt> rsh mycomp "myprog exports view"

No value for $TERM and no -T specified
No value for $TERM and no -T specified

These are the current defined exports:

        Index     Status    Export

        0         active    /TestDir         (insecure,rw)
        1         active    /   (insecure,rw)
[download]

Anyone has an idea what that means?

Thanks

Hotshot

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Re: TERM problems by saintmike (Vicar) on Sep 06, 2004 at 07:15 UTC
Every program running on Unix can check if its input/output is connected to a tty or not. In Perl, this is done via `if(-t STDOUT) { print "tty\n"; } else { print "no tty\n"; }` [download] If you run this program from the command line, it'll print `tty`. If you run it via a remote shell on another host, you'll see `no tty`. I suspect your program is checking this and prints an error if it finds out about it.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: TERM problems by hotshot (Prior) on Sep 06, 2004 at 07:30 UTC
I added your test in the begining of myprog and as you said it printed tty when running from the localhost and no tty when running from the remote host, but I have no other test for it that can print the error I get. What can cause the error (maybe perl checks this)? Hotshot	[reply]
Re^3: TERM problems by tachyon (Chancellor) on Sep 06, 2004 at 08:28 UTC
It's not an error, it's a warning. rsh is insecure anyway. Why not use ssh which will work fine (see the -t and -T options) ..... `ssh -t some.host.com <command>` [download] cheers tachyon	[reply] [d/l]
Re: TERM problems by trantor (Chaplain) on Sep 06, 2004 at 10:17 UTC
It looks like this error is output by the tput program, try: `unset TERM ; tput` Perhaps tput is used somewhere in your initialisation scripts, or executed from your Perl script? It is quite likely that the $TERM environment variable is not propagated, con can verify with: `rsh mycomp env` As a side note, since rsh is known to be highly insecure, you should consider using ssh instead, i.e.: `ssh -t mycomp env` -t allocates a pseudo-tty (i.e. a terminal) even when it wouldn't normally be allocated by ssh.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: TERM problems by Anonymous Monk on Sep 23, 2004 at 15:00 UTC
Hotshot, I had the same problem and discovered it was due to using colors in my bash prompt. I fixed it with a simple if check: `if [ $TERM != "dumb" ];then export PS1=pretty_color_prompt fi` [download] Worked like a champ. Keep in mind the "clear" call is just a wrapper to tput. So check those dotfiles for any clear commands as well.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: TERM problems by Anonymous Monk on Sep 23, 2004 at 14:55 UTC
Heya Hotshot. I just had this problem due to adding colors to my PS1 prompt. I changed it to the following: `if [ $TERM != "dumb" ];then export PS1=... fi` [download] I've also read tput can be called by the "clear" command, so check those dotfiles for clear! Hope this helps. :)	[reply] [d/l]