Paramiko “Invalid command” when trying non-standard command for Vyatta

Question

I've just tried to connect my Python/Django app with Vyatta server using Paramiko for SSHing. Unfortunately, when I try to run show interfaces it throws "Invalid command". However, if try to SSH manually from that server, it works fine. I tried also '/vbash -c "show interfaces"' - the same result.

ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.connect('10.0.0.1','vyatta','vyatta')
stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('show interfaces')
# or stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('vbash -c "show interfaces"')
print '-'.join(stdout)
print '-'.join(stderr)

Answer 1

As mentioned earlier you can use vyatta-cfg-cmd-wrapper and set any configuration node:

<import stuff>

command = """
    /opt/vyatta/sbin/vyatta-cfg-cmd-wrapper begin
    /opt/vyatta/sbin/vyatta-cfg-cmd-wrapper set system host-name newhostname
    /opt/vyatta/sbin/vyatta-cfg-cmd-wrapper commit
    /opt/vyatta/sbin/vyatta-cfg-cmd-wrapper save
    """

sshobj = paramiko.SSHClient()
sshobj.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
sshobj.connect(IP,username=login,password=sshpass)
stdin,stdout,stderr=sshobj.exec_command(command)
print ''.join(stdout)
sshobj.close()

And the reult as follow:

user@hostname$ python vyatta.py

Saving configuration to '/config/config.boot'...

Answer 2

Vyatta commands are done by templates in vbash. There are a bunch of environment variables that need to be set in order for templates to work. You have to either use a remote envrionment that sources .profilerc or there is an undocumented script vyatta-cfg-command wrapper to setup more complex state necessary to commit changes.