Hi,

I'm writing a quick an dirty app to automate some commands which would normally be issued by a terminal something like PuTTy.

To do this I'm using TProcess to call plink.exe and then trying to ssh into the remote box and issue commands.

In short I want to log into the remote box and execute commands 'cd /opt/someappdir' and './someapp', taking the input through one memo and using another memo to issue the commands.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I can open the terminal:

  PLink.CommandLine := 'plink.exe -ssh -pw
'+options.Values['Password']+' -batch
'+options.Values['User']+'@'+options.Values['Server'];
but sending subsequent calls fail:
  PLink.CommandLine := 'cd /opt/someappdir/ta';

Error message: 'Failed to execute cd /opt/someappdir/ta'

If I omit the subsequent calls it works roughly as expected:

  Plink.Options := [poUsePipes];
  Memo1.Append('-- executing --');
  Screen.Cursor:=crHourGlass;
  PLink.Execute;
  M.SetSize(BytesRead + READ_BYTES);
  n := PLink.Output.Read((M.Memory + BytesRead)^, READ_BYTES);
  if n > 0
  then begin
    S.LoadFromStream(M);
    Memo1.Append(S.Text)
  end;
  S.Free;
  M.Free;

and I get the following in memo1:

-- executing --
Last login: Fri Mar 13 02:49:21 2009 from 192.168.37.43

Y?J??9?a?f??/F?#2
??/??Y.KDPx?R?`?8?\.ow?z%

Can anybody suggest something here? Or point me in a better direction.

Your process is plink.exe. any further communication should go through plink.input and plink.output, e.g. (not tested):
...
plink.execute;
{ read welcome message from plink.output }
remoteCommand:='cd /opt/someappdir/ta'#10;
plink.input.write(remoteCommand[1],length(remoteCommand)); { read (echo and?) result of previous command}

regards
Burkhard

See the process example:

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Executing_External_Programs#Using_input_and_output_of_a_TProcess and
https://lazarus-ccr.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/lazarus-ccr/examples/process/

Vincent

Thanks guys!

Actually, as I sent it off I thought "This isn't the best way of doing this" and I thought I might get either a dignified lack of response or howls of derision!

But I'm having great difficulty in stalling any of the Internet suites: lNet doesn't install because of a missing __front_type__ identifier ( http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,6126.0.html ), Indy installs but it can't find the 'uses' code.

Hi Vincent,

2009/3/13 Vincent Snijders :

That was the article on which I based my code.

I'm not having much luck.

  PLink.CommandLine := plink.exe -ssh -pw
'+options.Values['Password']+' -batch
'+options.Values['User']+'@'+options.Values['Server'];
  Plink.Options := [poUsePipes];
  Memo1.Append('-- executing --');
  PLink.Execute;
  M.SetSize(BytesRead + READ_BYTES);
  n := PLink.Output.Read((M.Memory + BytesRead)^, READ_BYTES);
  if n > 0 then
  begin
    S.LoadFromStream(M);
    for i:=0 to S.Count-1 do
    begin
      Memo1.Lines.Append(S[i]);
    end;
  end
  else
  begin
    Memo1.Lines.Append('Unable to open '+options.Values['Server']);
  end;
  remoteCommand:='ls -l'+#10;
  plink.input.write(remoteCommand[1],length(remoteCommand));
  M.SetSize(BytesRead + READ_BYTES);
  n := PLink.Output.Read((M.Memory + BytesRead)^, READ_BYTES);
  if n > 0 then
  begin
    S.LoadFromStream(M);
    for i:=0 to S.Count-1 do
    begin
      Memo1.Lines.Append(S[i]);
    end;
  end;

I would expect the output of 'ls -l' to give me quite a lot of information but S.LoadFromStream(M); doesn't contain anything at all.