I tried using threads::shared but I couldn't seem to pass the reference to $ssh on to my thread.

Try it this way:

use threads;
use Net::...

my $ssh = ...;
$ssh->scp_put($firmware[$antenna_type],'/tmp/fwupdate.bin');

async {
    print "Upgrading firmware, this will take about 3 minutes.\n";
    my $chan = $ssh->channel();
    $chan->exec("/sbin/fwupdate -m\n");
    $chan->close;
}->detach;

...
[download]

That should "work" and allow your main thread to continue. The thread Will hang around until the connection times out, but is that a problem?

Alternatively, could you detach the remote process into the background using &:

$ssh->scp_put($firmware[$antenna_type],'/tmp/fwupdate.bin');
print "Upgrading firmware, this will take about 3 minutes.\n";
my $chan = $ssh->channel();
$chan->exec( "/sbin/fwupdate -m &\n"); ### Note: &
$chan->close;
[download]

Wouldn't that allow the connection to complete in a timely fashion?

I like your solution and am perfectly fine with it hanging until the timeout. . However, I still get the same error as I would with a normal threads in that $ssh is not correctly passed
Thread 1 terminated abnormally: Can't call method "exec" on an undefined value at Configuration.pl
If I pass the $ssh in as a ref:


$ssh_ref = \$ssh;
        async {
            print "Upgrading firmware, this will take about 3 minutes.
+\n";
            my $chan = $$ssh_ref->channel();
            $chan->exec("/sbin/fwupdate -m\n");
            $chan->close;
        }->detach;
[download]


I get this error. . I have NO idea what it means.
perl: ath.c:193: _gcry_ath_mutex_lock: Assertion `*lock == ((ath_mutex_t) 0)' failed.
Maybe I need to lock the var before I use it? Thoughts?

The & does not seem to help either. .

Why are you using a reference to the object instead of the object?

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Instead of closing the channel, try closing the socket and then disconnecting the full session:

my $socket = $ssh->socket;
my $chan = $ssh->channel();
$chan->exec("/sbin/fwupdate -m\n");
close $socket;
$ssh->disconnect;
[download]

Though, even then there is a race condition: fwupdate may be faster taking control of the machine than the SSH server responding to the SSH_MSG_CHANNEL_REQUEST request.

Setting blocking to 0 could help there, but them, the exec method may fail and you will never know if the command was delivered or not:

my $chan = $ssh->channel();
$ssh->blocking(0);
$chan->exec("/sbin/fwupdate -m\n");
[download]

Alternatively, if you are running your script in a Unix/Linux box, instead of Net::SSH2, you could use Net::OpenSSH (the OpenSSH client used by the module under the hood is able to detect staled connections):

use Net::OpenSSH;

my $ssh = Net::OpenSSH->new($host, timeout => 30);
$ssh->scp_put($firmware[$antenna_type],'/tmp/fwupdate.bin');
$ssh->system("/sbin/fwupdate -m\n");
[download]

I tried the disconnect. Unfortunately the code does not continue past the channel exec. If you throw in the $ssh->disconnect, it never even gets there.

blocking(0) seems to have no effect. I had actually tried that, forgot to mention it.

OpenSSH: Yeah, thought of that as well but the code has to be usable from multiple different systems.

would your busydos shell accept the following command?

(sleep 5 && /sbin/fwupdate -m) >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null &
[download]

That would execute the command after 5 seconds, time enough for the SSH session to be closed.

You can google for nohup Net::SSH2 for more ideas.

Don't I WISH!! Unfortunately the OS I'm connecting to does not contain nohup. It's a busybox linux on an embedded device.

Unfortunately the OS I'm connecting to does not contain nohup. It's a busybox linux on an embedded device.

You can implement nohup as a shell script. See src/nohup.sh in ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-3.3/source/a/sh_utils/sh-utils-1.16.tar.gz and the resulting usr/bin/nohup in ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware-3.3/slakware/a8/sh_utils.tgz. Reduced to the bare minimum, you just need a shell that implements the trap and exec commands. Having nice is a nice extra, but it is not strictly required; and even cat and [ (test) are not needed if you make sure you always redirect STDOUT and STDERR when invoking the nohup script.

Alexander

--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)