perl Expect

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

hi i am trying to write a script which executes a command on a remote server and captures the output in a variable .I was able to execute the command but unable to capture the output and it is directed to standard output.
here is the code

use Expect;

my $exp = new Expect;
$exp->raw_pty(0|1);
$exp->log_stdout(0);
$exp->spawn("ssh","servername","ls /");
$exp->expect(2,"-re","connecting");
$exp->send("yes\n");
$exp->expect(10,"-re","password");
$exp->send("password\n");
$exp->expect(0);
$read = $exp->before();
$exp->soft_close();
$exp->log_stdout(1);
print $read;
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Comment on perl Expect Download Code

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Re: perl Expect by betterworld (Curate) on Aug 15, 2008 at 13:50 UTC
You can use SSH with public key authentication, which removes the need for typing a password, thus making ssh much more scriptable. Maybe you have reasons for wanting a password, but just in case: How to set up ssh with public key authentication	[reply]
Re^2: perl Expect by redkar (Novice) on Aug 15, 2008 at 18:20 UTC
yeah... what you said is absolutely correct...rsa authentication is the best way to do it.... but what i am thinking is if one should propagate keys to a large number of servers then though less secure the best thing that came to my mind is to write an expect script to propagate the keys.... As this is insecure i would like to know better ways to do it	[reply]
Re: perl Expect by Illuminatus (Curate) on Aug 15, 2008 at 23:08 UTC
Did you look at Net::SSH::Expect? I have not used it personally, but it does have methods for collecting the input into strings. I assume by 'output' you really mean input. You obviously know what you are outputting :)	[reply]