Execute commands on remote machines non-interactively using ssh with expect

Expect is a program that "talks" to other interactive programs according to a script. Following the script, Expect knows what can be expected from a program and what the correct response should be. An interpreted language provides branching and high-level control structures to direct the dialogue. In addition, the user can take control and interact directly when desired, afterward returning control to the script.

Expectk is a mixture of Expect and Tk. It behaves just like Expect and Tk's wish. Expect can also be used directly in C or C++ (that is, without Tcl). See libexpect(3).

The name "Expect" comes from the idea of send/expect sequences popularized by uucp, kermit and other modem control programs. However unlike uucp, Expect is generalized so that it can be run as a user-level command with any program and task in mind. Expect can actually talk to several programs at the same time.

For example, here are some things Expect can do:

        * Cause your computer to dial you back, so that you can login without paying for the call.
        * Start a game (e.g., rogue) and if the optimal configuration doesn't appear, restart it (again and again) until it does, then hand over control to you.
        * Run fsck, and in response to its questions, answer "yes", "no" or give control back to you, based on predetermined criteria.
        * Connect to another network or BBS (e.g., MCI Mail, CompuServe) and automatically retrieve your mail so that it appears as if it was originally sent to your local system.
        * Carry environment variables, current directory, or any kind of information across rlogin, telnet, tip, su, chgrp, etc.

There are a variety of reasons why the shell cannot perform these tasks. (Try, you'll see.) All are possible with Expect.

In general, Expect is useful for running any program which requires interaction between the program and the user. All that is necessary is that the interaction can be characterized programmatically. Expect can also give the user back control (without halting the program being controlled) if desired. Similarly, the user can return control to the script at any time.

Example:
Make sure expect is installed on the system.

In this script df will be the command executed on remote hosts

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
USER=$1
HOST=$2
PASS=$3

VAR=$(expect -c "
spawn ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no $USER@$HOST
expect \"password:\"
send \"$PASS\r\"
expect \"\\\\$\"
send \"df -h \r\"
expect -re \"$USER.*\"
send \"logout\"
")

echo "==============="
echo "$VAR"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#Excecute the Script#
#./ScriptName  UserName HostName Password
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SSH login without password

Your aim

You want to use Linux and OpenSSH to automize your tasks. Therefore you need an automatic login from host A / user a to Host B / user b. You don't want to enter any passwords, because you want to call ssh from a within a shell script.

How to do it

First log in on A as user a and generate a pair of authentication keys. Do not enter a passphrase:

a@A:~> ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/a/.ssh/id_rsa): 
Created directory '/home/a/.ssh'.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /home/a/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/a/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
3e:4f:05:79:3a:9f:96:7c:3b:ad:e9:58:37:bc:37:e4 a@A

Now use ssh to create a directory ~/.ssh as user b on B. (The directory may already exist, which is fine):

a@A:~> ssh b@B mkdir -p .ssh
b@B's password: 

Finally append a's new public key to b@B:.ssh/authorized_keys and enter b's password one last time:

a@A:~> cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh b@B 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'
b@B's password: 

From now on you can log into B as b from A as a without password:

a@A:~> ssh b@B hostname
B

A note from one of our readers: Depending on your version of SSH you might also have to do the following changes:

• Put the public key in .ssh/authorized_keys2
• Change the permissions of .ssh to 700
• Change the permissions of .ssh/authorized_keys2 to 640