Lua

Release an SSH Channel's Local Resources

Demonstrates the Chilkat Ssh.ChannelRelease method, which releases Chilkat's retained local resources for a channel after all output and exit information has been retrieved. The only argument is the channel number.

Background: Chilkat retains a channel's buffered output and exit information after the channel closes, so you can still read a command's final output. That retention costs memory, and a long-running program that opens many channels should release each one when finished with it. Note this is not a channel-closing method — it sends neither EOF nor CLOSE. Retrieve everything you need first, because releasing discards it.

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Lua

local chilkat = require("chilkat")

-- Demonstrates the Ssh.ChannelRelease method, which releases Chilkat's retained local resources
-- for a channel after all output and exit information has been retrieved.  The only argument is
-- the channel number.

local ssh = chilkat.Ssh.new()

local sshPort = 22
local success = ssh:connect("ssh.example.com", sshPort)
if not success then
    print(ssh.last_error_text)
    return
end

-- Normally you would not hard-code the password in source.  You should instead obtain it
-- from an interactive prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
local password = "mySshPassword"

success = ssh:authenticate_pw("mySshLogin", password)
if not success then
    print(ssh.last_error_text)
    return
end

-- Open a session channel.  A negative return value indicates failure.
local channelNum = ssh:open_session_channel()
if channelNum < 0 then
    print(ssh.last_error_text)
    return
end

success = ssh:send_req_exec(channelNum, "uname -a")
if not success then
    print(ssh.last_error_text)
    return
end

-- IMPORTANT: Set a read timeout.  ReadTimeoutMs defaults to 0, which means no limit -- without
-- it, this call waits forever if the server never sends channel close.
ssh.read_timeout_ms = 15000

-- Retrieve everything of interest before releasing the channel.
success = ssh:channel_receive_to_close(channelNum)
if not success then
    print(ssh.last_error_text)
    return
end

local output = ssh:get_received_text(channelNum, "utf-8")
if not ssh.last_method_success then
    print(ssh.last_error_text)
    return
end

print(output)

-- Release the retained local resources.  This does not send EOF or CLOSE.
ssh:channel_release(channelNum)

ssh:disconnect()