Perl
Perl
SSH to a Cisco Switch - Processing "More" Responses
See more SSH Examples
Demonstrates connecting to a Cisco switch, entering privileged mode with the ena command, and running a command whose response is paged. Each page ends with --More-- and requires a SPACE character to request the next page.
Note: QuickShell allocates a PTY, which is what a network device console expects. The device presents an interactive prompt, and each command's output is read up to the next prompt.
Background: Paged output is the console equivalent of a pager like
more, and a client must reproduce the keypress a human would make. Matching a set of patterns is what makes this tractable: each read ends either at the device prompt (output complete) or at --More-- (another page waiting), and the code branches accordingly. Note the prompt pattern includes the device name rather than a bare #, because that character also appears inside configuration text and would otherwise match far too early.Chilkat Perl Downloads
use chilkat();
$success = 0;
# This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
# See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.
# Demonstrates connecting to a Cisco switch, entering privileged mode, and running a command
# whose response is paged -- each page ends with "--More--" and requires a SPACE character to
# request the next page.
$ssh = chilkat::CkSsh->new();
$port = 22;
$success = $ssh->Connect("172.16.16.100",$port);
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
# 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.
$password = "mySshPassword";
$success = $ssh->AuthenticatePw("mySshLogin",$password);
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$channelNum = $ssh->QuickShell();
if ($channelNum < 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
# IMPORTANT: Set a read timeout before receiving until a match. ReadTimeoutMs defaults to 0,
# which means no limit -- without it, this call waits forever if the received data never
# contains a match.
$ssh->put_ReadTimeoutMs(15000);
$caseSensitive = 1;
# In unprivileged mode the switch prompt ends with ">".
$success = $ssh->ChannelReceiveUntilMatch($channelNum,">","utf-8",$caseSensitive);
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$received = $ssh->getReceivedText($channelNum,"utf-8");
if ($ssh->get_LastMethodSuccess() == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
print $received . "\r\n";
# Send "ena" to enter privileged mode. Cisco devices expect a bare CR to terminate a command.
$success = $ssh->ChannelSendString($channelNum,"ena\r","utf-8");
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$success = $ssh->ChannelReceiveUntilMatch($channelNum,"Password:","utf-8",$caseSensitive);
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$received = $ssh->getReceivedText($channelNum,"utf-8");
if ($ssh->get_LastMethodSuccess() == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
print $received . "\r\n";
# The enable password is separate from the login password, and likewise should come from a
# secure source rather than being hard-coded.
$enablePassword = "myEnablePassword";
$success = $ssh->ChannelSendString($channelNum,$enablePassword,"utf-8");
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$success = $ssh->ChannelSendString($channelNum,"\r","utf-8");
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
# In privileged mode the prompt ends with "#" instead of ">".
$success = $ssh->ChannelReceiveUntilMatch($channelNum,"#","utf-8",$caseSensitive);
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$received = $ssh->getReceivedText($channelNum,"utf-8");
if ($ssh->get_LastMethodSuccess() == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
print $received . "\r\n";
# Run a command whose output is delivered a page at a time.
$success = $ssh->ChannelSendString($channelNum,"show running-config\r","utf-8");
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
# Each read ends either at the device prompt (output complete) or at "--More--" (another page
# is waiting). Match the full prompt rather than a bare "#", because "#" also appears inside
# configuration text and would match too early.
$saMatch = chilkat::CkStringArray->new();
$saMatch->Append("MySwitchName#");
$saMatch->Append("--More--");
$sbReceived = chilkat::CkStringBuilder->new();
$moreComing = 1;
while ($moreComing) {
$success = $ssh->ChannelReceiveUntilMatchN($channelNum,$saMatch,"utf-8",$caseSensitive);
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$sbReceived->Clear();
$pageText = $ssh->getReceivedText($channelNum,"utf-8");
if ($ssh->get_LastMethodSuccess() == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
$sbReceived->Append($pageText);
print $pageText . "\r\n";
# If this page ended with "--More--", send a SPACE to request the next page.
$moreComing = $sbReceived->Contains("--More--",$caseSensitive);
if ($moreComing) {
$success = $ssh->ChannelSendString($channelNum," ","utf-8");
if ($success == 0) {
print $ssh->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
exit;
}
}
}
$ssh->Disconnect();