Novice needs help using Expect to automate sftp

[Database Administrator]

I have been struggling with a project that requires me to use sftp.
After working through all the issues getting sftp working on AIX 5.3,
I now need to automate the sftp process. This appears harder than it
should be. It appears that getting past the password prompt is a
frustration everyone runs up against. After much reading, I thought
Expect was the key and I installed it. Unfortunately, it does not
seem to be working. Here is what I am trying:

# /usr/bin/expect << EOF
> spawn sftp username@sftp.site.com
> expect "password:"
> send "my_password"
> expect "sftp>"
> send "ls"
> expect "sftp>"
> send "quit"
> EOF

And here is what I am getting:

spawn sftp username@sftp.site.com
Connecting to sftp.site.com...
username@sftp.site.com's password: #

As you can see, I am still being prompted for the password. What am I
doing incorrectly?

-Thanks

[Database Administrator]

In comp.unix.shell rsine :
> I have been struggling with a project that requires me to use sftp.
[..]

> As you can see, I am still being prompted for the password. What am I
> doing incorrectly?

Simply setup ssh keylogin and you do not need a password at all:

$ sftp localhost
Connecting to localhost...
sftp>

It is explained in the ssh man page:

man ssh
/authorized_keys

And there are probably hundreds of guides online accessible
through a web search how to set this up. Extra points for running
ssh-agent, though you should do better even with an empty pass
phrase then putting the password in a file.

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 13: we're waiting for [the phone company] to fix
that line

[Database Administrator]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:03:19 -0700, rsine
wrote:
>
>
> I have been struggling with a project that requires me to use sftp.
> After working through all the issues getting sftp working on AIX 5.3,
> I now need to automate the sftp process. This appears harder than it
> should be. It appears that getting past the password prompt is a
> frustration everyone runs up against. After much reading, I thought
> Expect was the key and I installed it. Unfortunately, it does not
> seem to be working. Here is what I am trying:
>
> # /usr/bin/expect << EOF
>> spawn sftp username@sftp.site.com
>> expect "password:"
>> send "my_password"
send "my_password\r"


--
Police are unsure if the same wookie is involved in Sunday's assault.

[Database Administrator]

On Jul 13, 1:04 pm, Bill Marcum wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:03:19 -0700, rsine wrote:
>
> > I have been struggling with a project that requires me to use sftp.
> > After working through all the issues getting sftp working on AIX 5.3,
> > I now need to automate the sftp process. This appears harder than it
> > should be. It appears that getting past the password prompt is a
> > frustration everyone runs up against. After much reading, I thought
> > Expect was the key and I installed it. Unfortunately, it does not
> > seem to be working. Here is what I am trying:
>
> > # /usr/bin/expect << EOF
> >> spawn sftp usern...@sftp.site.com
> >> expect "password:"
> >> send "my_password"
>
> send "my_password\r"
>
> --
> Police are unsure if the same wookie is involved in Sunday's assault.

Bill,

I think my issue is with the password. The vendor created one with "$
$" in it ala AbCDE$$123. I know the "$" symbol has a special meaning
for Unix. How can I pass the "$$" in a password? Enclosing the
password in quotes did not help.

[Database Administrator]

On Jul 13, 1:17 pm, rsine wrote:
> On Jul 13, 1:04 pm, Bill Marcum wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:03:19 -0700, rsine wrote:
>
> > > I have been struggling with a project that requires me to use sftp.
> > > After working through all the issues getting sftp working on AIX 5.3,
> > > I now need to automate the sftp process. This appears harder than it
> > > should be. It appears that getting past the password prompt is a
> > > frustration everyone runs up against. After much reading, I thought
> > > Expect was the key and I installed it. Unfortunately, it does not
> > > seem to be working. Here is what I am trying:
>
> > > # /usr/bin/expect << EOF
> > >> spawn sftp usern...@sftp.site.com
> > >> expect "password:"
> > >> send "my_password"
>
> > send "my_password\r"
>
> > --
> > Police are unsure if the same wookie is involved in Sunday's assault.
>
> Bill,
>
> I think my issue is with the password. The vendor created one with "$
> $" in it ala AbCDE$$123. I know the "$" symbol has a special meaning
> for Unix. How can I pass the "$$" in a password? Enclosing the
> password in quotes did not help.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Thanks for all the help. After more research, I discovered
autoexpect. Using this tool, I was able to capture all that I was
executing. Looking at the autoexpect file, I found the password
needed the dollar signs entered as "\$\$" and the "\r" needed to be
concatenated to the data (I was leaving a space between).

For all those novices like me, here is what I found to work:

expect << EOF
spawn sftp username@sftp.site.com
expect "password:"
send -- "my_pa\$\$word\r"
expect "sftp> "
send -- "ls\r"
expect "sftp> "
send -- "exit\r"
EOF

[AgnelCodes]

^ Thanks a ton. You saved my job!

I got stuck with a problem, my Team Lead has gone on vacation and I had to complete this task before he returned. For that the final step involved pulling data back using sftp. Perl sftp was not working since many perl packages weren't installed.

This method does the job and for now it is good enough.

THanks a ton man!

PS: It would certainly feel nice to get a reply after 2 years...

Take care