How can I use putty.exe with python to run remote unix commands like "mail" "cat" etc?

Question

How can I use putty.exe with python to run remote unix commands like "mail" "cat" etc? I have a file on my unix machine, I want to send that file content as an email

Answer 1

you dont

(or at least you shouldnt)

... instead use paramiko

here is a helper class I use with paramiko (see example use at the bottom) ... im pretty sure i found most of this class in some other stack overflow answer years ago

from contextlib import contextmanager
import os
import re
import paramiko
import time


class SshClient:
    """A wrapper of paramiko.SSHClient"""
    TIMEOUT = 10

    def __init__(self, connection_string,**kwargs):
        self.key = kwargs.pop("key",None)
        self.client = kwargs.pop("client",None)
        self.connection_string = connection_string
        try:
            self.username,self.password,self.host = re.search("(\w+):(\w+)@(.*)",connection_string).groups()
        except (TypeError,ValueError):
            raise Exception("Invalid connection sting should be 'user:pass@ip'")
        try:
            self.host,self.port = self.host.split(":",1)
        except (TypeError,ValueError):
            self.port = "22"
        self.connect(self.host,int(self.port),self.username,self.password,self.key)
    def reconnect(self):
        self.connect(self.host,int(self.port),self.username,self.password,self.key)

    def connect(self, host, port, username, password, key=None):
        self.client = paramiko.SSHClient()
        self.client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
        self.client.connect(host, port, username=username, password=password, pkey=key, timeout=self.TIMEOUT)

    def close(self):
        if self.client is not None:
            self.client.close()
            self.client = None

    def execute(self, command, sudo=False,**kwargs):
        should_close=False
        if not self.is_connected():
            self.reconnect()
            should_close = True
        feed_password = False
        if sudo and self.username != "root":
            command = "sudo -S -p '' %s" % command
            feed_password = self.password is not None and len(self.password) > 0
        stdin, stdout, stderr = self.client.exec_command(command,**kwargs)
        if feed_password:
            stdin.write(self.password + "\n")
            stdin.flush()

        result = {'out': stdout.readlines(),
                'err': stderr.readlines(),
                'retval': stdout.channel.recv_exit_status()}
        if should_close:
            self.close()
        return result

    @contextmanager
    def _get_sftp(self):
        yield paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(self.client.get_transport())

    def put_in_dir(self, src, dst):
        if not isinstance(src,(list,tuple)):
            src = [src]
        print self.execute('''python -c "import os;os.makedirs('%s')"'''%dst)
        with self._get_sftp() as sftp:
            for s in src:
                sftp.put(s, dst+os.path.basename(s))

    def get(self, src, dst):
        with self._get_sftp() as sftp:
            sftp.get(src, dst)
    def rm(self,*remote_paths):
        for p in remote_paths:
            self.execute("rm -rf {0}".format(p),sudo=True)
    def mkdir(self,dirname):
        print self.execute("mkdir {0}".format(dirname))
    def remote_open(self,remote_file_path,open_mode):
        with self._get_sftp() as sftp:
            return sftp.open(remote_file_path,open_mode)

    def is_connected(self):
        transport = self.client.get_transport() if self.client else None
        return transport and transport.is_active()
if __name__ == "__main__":
    s = SshClient("user:password@192.168.1.125")
    print s.execute("ls")
    print s.execute("ls /etc",sudo=True)

Answer 2

The subprocess module is what you're looking for.

Here is a helpful tutorial on using it http://sharats.me/the-ever-useful-and-neat-subprocess-module.html

Beyond that, without specifics, we're not going to be much help to you.