How to use expect inside bash script

Question

Could anybody please tell me why this is not working?

#!/bin/bash
cd /home
touch somefile
/usr/bin/expect<<FILETRANSFER
spawn scp -r -P remoteServerPort somefile remoteServerIP:/home
expect "assword:"
send "MyPassWord\r"
interact
FILETRANSFER
echo "It's done"

It doesn't give any error but file is not transferred to remote server.I have tried many ways still couldn't find any solution.

A better way would be to avoid typing or sending any password with `ssh` (also `scp` ). Read some ssh tutorial and use a public key. — Basile Starynkevitch, Jul 17 '17 at 13:06
thanks for your replies. @ Basile Starynkevitch I can't use public key for some reasons. @ Jahid added space but still not working. — Hasan Rumman, Jul 17 '17 at 13:56
This script looks a bit "pseudo" -- are you using shell variables inside the expect body? Normally I would do `expect <<'FILETRANSFER'` where the single quotes effectively quote the entire here-doc. — glenn jackman, Jul 17 '17 at 14:10

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 17 '17 at 15:09

14

The bash script you have defined is passing the expect commands on the standard input of expect. However, the expect command requires its arguments on a file or as an argument using the -c option.

You have several options but to add the less modifications on your script you just need to use the process substitution to create a here-document (temporary) for the expect command.

#!/bin/bash 

  echo "[DEBUG] INIT BASH"

  cd /home
  touch somefile

  /usr/bin/expect <(cat << EOF
spawn scp -r -P remoteServerPort somefile remoteServerIP:/home
expect "Password:"
send "MyPassWord\r"
interact
EOF
)

  echo "[DEBUG] END BASH"

answered Jul 17 '17 at 15:09

Cristian Ramon-Cortes

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Btw, I have just checked and there is a SO answer with all the available options here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41165719/embedding-an-expect-inside-a-bash-script – Cristian Ramon-Cortes Jul 17 '17 at 15:10
No, expect is perfectly fine reading the commands from stdin as posted in the question. – glenn jackman Jul 18 '17 at 02:36
Is there any way to do this with Bourne Shell? – Sridhar Sarnobat Feb 28 '20 at 03:20
1

Actually this same script should work in sh since there is nothing bash dependant. – Cristian Ramon-Cortes Feb 28 '20 at 09:52

How to use expect inside bash script

1 Answers1