Read file into String and do a loop in Expect Script

Question

What I am trying to do is to:

1. Create a .exp file, which will read from the *.txt file from the same directory and parse all the conte

Answer 1

I'd refactor a bit:

#!/usr/bin/expect

set timeout 20
set user test
set password test

proc check_host {hostname} {
    global user passwordt

    spawn ssh $user@$hostname
    expect "password"
    send "$password\r"
    expect "% "                ;# adjust to suit the prompt accordingly
    send "some command\r"
    expect "% "                ;# adjust to suit the prompt accordingly
    send "exit\r"
    expect eof
}

set fp [open commands.txt r]
while {[gets $fp line] != -1} {
    check_host $line
}
close $fp

Answer 2

The code should read the contents of the two files into lists of lines, then iterate over them. It ends up like this:

# Set up various other variables here ($user, $password)

# Get the list of hosts, one per line #####
set f [open "host.txt"]
set hosts [split [read $f] "\n"]
close $f

# Get the commands to run, one per line
set f [open "commands.txt"]
set commands [split [read $f] "\n"]
close $f

# Iterate over the hosts
foreach host $hosts {
    spawn ssh $user@host
    expect "password:"
    send "$password\r"

    # Iterate over the commands
    foreach cmd $commands {
        expect "% "
        send "$cmd\r"
    }

    # Tidy up
    expect "% "
    send "exit\r"
    expect eof
    close
}

You could refactor this a bit with a worker procedure or two, but that's the basic idea.

Answer 3

Using any of the two solutions here, I would also create a logfile that you can view at a later time. Makes it easy to troubleshoot any problems after the script is run, especially if you're configuring several hundred hosts.

Add:

log_file -a [log file name]

Before your loop.

Cheers,

K