mjhjmtu

I have automated most of the information required for the completion of this project but the only thing that is lagging is the running of local shell scripts on the remote machine.

As we are aware that no Linux command is recognized by the script that uses the 'expect' library.

Here in we have two use cases that I have tried:

1. 
   

   Running the desired list of commands on the remote server using only one expect script which has both the script execution as well as pushing of output using scp to the local machine, here is a snippet of this code:

   
   
   

   chmod 777 localscript.sh
   cat > script1.sh <<- "ALL"
   #!/usr/bin/expect
   set password [lindex $argv 0];
   set ipaddress [lindex $argv 1];
   set timevalue [lindex $argv 2];
   set timeout $timevalue
   spawn /usr/bin/ssh username@$ipaddress /bin/bash < ./localscript.sh
   expect "assword:"
   send "$passwordr"
   set timeout $timevalue
   spawn /usr/bin/scp username@$2:"/path/from/source/*" /path/to/destination/folder/
   expect "assword:"
   send "$passwordr"
   interact
   ALL
   chmod 777 script1.sh
   ./script1.sh $password $2 $timevalue
   

   
   


2. 
   

   Running the desired list of commands on the remote server in a separate expect script and using scp to get files in a different script:

   
   
   

   cat > script1.sh <<- "ALL"
   #!/usr/bin/expect
   set password [lindex $argv 0];
   set ipaddress [lindex $argv 1];
   set timevalue [lindex $argv 2];
   set timeout $timevalue
   spawn /usr/bin/ssh username@$ipaddress /bin/bash < ./localscript.sh
   expect "assword:"
   send "$passwordr"
   interact
   ALL
   cat > script2.sh <<- "ALL2"
   #!/usr/bin/expect
   set password [lindex $argv 0];
   set ipaddress [lindex $argv 1];
   set timevalue [lindex $argv 2];
   set timeout $timevalue
   spawn /usr/bin/scp username@ipaddress:"/path/from/source/*" /path/to/destination/folder/
   expect "assword:"
   send "$passwordr"
   interact
   ALL2
   chmod 777 localscript.sh script1.sh script2.sh
   ./script1.sh $password $2 $timevalue
   sleep 5
   ./script2.sh $password $2 $timevalue
   

   
   

==========================

I believe the above codes should both be valid in their own respect, however, the output for the same seem to be quite unexpected:

1. 
   

   Both the commands ssh and scp are being executed almost simultaneously after the password is entered hence, it is not giving localscript enough time to do its job, here's the output I see:

   
   
   

   spawn /usr/bin/ssh username@1.2.3.4 /bin/bash < ./localscript.sh
   Warning private system unauthorized users will be prosecuted.
   username@1.2.3.4's password: spawn /usr/bin/scp username@1.2.3.4:"/home/some/file/*" /another/file/
   Warning private system unauthorized users will be prosecuted.
   username@1.2.3.4's password:
   scp: /home/some/file/*: No such file or directory
   

   
   

Please note: This functionality is working fine without the involvement of 'expect'

2. 
   

   Here we are executing ssh and scp separately, however, it seems like it is unable to recognize that the file localscript.sh exists:

   
   
   

   spawn /usr/bin/ssh username@1.2.3.4 /bin/bash < ./localscript.sh
   Warning private system unauthorized users will be prosecuted.
   username@1.2.3.4's password:
   bash: localscript.sh: No such file or directory
   Warning private system unauthorized users will be prosecuted.
   username@1.2.3.4's password:
   scp: /home/some/file/*: No such file or directory
   

   
   

Any feedback on the same would be appreciated, I think the first approach might be a feasible solution, except the fact that spawn is too fast and none of the 'sleep' or 'after' commands are helping/working. I think the second approach is also valid however it seems like there is a different way of running a local script on a remote server than the usual way we do on Linux when using 'expect'.

Some notes:

• the expect shebang line is wrong: # #!/usr/bin/expect should be just #!/usr/bin/expect
  


• you ssh into a remote host, but you scp from your local machine. Is this what you intend?
  
  
  • if not, the 2nd spawn should be send instead.
  
  
  • I suspect this is the source of the scp "file not found" errors.
  
  


• you use $2 instead of $ipaddress
  


• if you don't intend to actually interact with the spawned process, wait for it to end with expect eof not interact
  


• your shell script creates "script1.sh" and "script2.sh" but does not create "localscript.sh"


• ".sh" is not a descriptive extension for expect code: ".exp" would be better


• quote all shell variables: ./script1.sh "$password" "$2" "$timevalue"
  

I'd write that like this. Obviously untested:

#!/bin/bash
export password=$1
export ipaddress=$2
export timevalue=$3:--1 # use default -1 if not specified

[[ -z "$password" ]] && echo "Error: missing password"; exit 1; 
[[ -z "$ipaddress" ]] && echo "Error: missing IP address"; exit 1; 

/usr/bin/expect -d <<END_EXPECT
 set timeout $env(timevalue)

 spawn sh -c "/usr/bin/ssh username@$env(ipaddress) /bin/bash < ./localscript.sh"
 expect "assword:"
 send "$env(password)r"
 expect eof

 spawn /usr/bin/scp username@$env(ipaddress):"/path/from/source/*" /path/to/destination/folder/
 expect "assword:"
 send "$env(password)r"
 expect eof
END_EXPECT

I added the -d option which turns on debug output for expect. Remove it when no longer needed.

The problem is that the spawn command does not know how to do the shell redirection: spawn is receiving the arguments "ssh", "user@host", "/bin/bash", "<" (a literal less-than), and "./localhost.sh". I'm explicitly executing that ssh command with a shell here so that the redirection can be done correctly.