Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi All,

I have an expect script called sftp to transfer using SFTP below :

[root@prod:/root]
# more sftp
#!/usr/local/bin/expect

# Initialisation
set authFile "/home/ap1030/transfer/.password"

# Check the authorisation file exists
if {![file exists $authFile]} { ;# Does file exist
send_user "$authFile does not exist; aborting\n"
exit 1
}
set fileFD [open $authFile r] ;# Open the auth file
gets $fileFD authLine ;# Read in 1 line to authLine
close $fileFD

# Transfer file(s)
spawn /opt/openssh/bin/sftp -b /home/ap1030/transfer/batchFile importve@www.importve.com
expect "password:"
send "$authLine\n";
interact

When I run this script manually from command line, it was running fine. But when I put on crontab, it was NOT working. I believe this is related to "interact" command on the last line. It always get stuck after password. How can I overcome this problem? Pls help.

Below is my crontab entry and the log file. Pls help.

05 15 * * * /usr/local/bin/expect -f /home/ap1030/transfer/sftp > /tmp/sftp 2>1&

[importve@sihp8026:/home/ap1030/transfer]
$ more /tmp/sftp
spawn /opt/openssh/bin/sftp -b /home/ap1030/transfer/batchFile importve@www.importve.com
Connecting to www.importve.com...
importve@www.importve.com's password:

Thanks and Best Regards,
Dewa

From your log it shows that ... cron was fired ...
but is it asking the passwd there ???

Is it not asking the passwd when u ran on the cmd line as "root" ???

Is crontab created by root or some other user ??

ap1030, Please see the rules. Do not cross-post questions. This will not safeguard a speedier response.

I have deleted the duplicate post from the "Dummies" forum.

Thanks,
ZB

I am also having the same problem like AP1030. How come the problem is not solved in 3 years time?

It's 2008 now and I'm also having the same issue. Does anyone have an idea?

Running things from cron is always interesting. What user is the cron job running as?
The environment that you are used to as a normal user doesn't exist for the cron job so you have to figure out what is missing and add it to the script. Making this change won't make a visible difference when you run it from your login but will make a world of
differenct to the cron job.

Is the interact command needed in your script? Since it is running in cron there is no shell or user for it to interact with and probably wont work. Maybe you should have it do something similar to this:

# Transfer file(s)
set timeout 600
spawn /opt/openssh/bin/sftp -b /home/ap1030/transfer/batchFile importve@www.importve.com
expect "password:"
send "$authLine\n";
expect "sftp>"
send "bye\r"
expect eof
exit



I cannot remember what the sftp prompt looks like. So you may need to adjust the "sftp>" to SFTP> or whatever it actually is. You can verify the prompt by doing it manually.

Also, the timeout should be set high enough to ensure that your file transfers before it times out. 600 is 10 minutes. If it will take longer to transfer the file then you should adjust this accordingly.

Also, not sure if \n will work when sending the authline. If it does not work then you could just set the password directly (for trouble-shooting purposes since you may not want to leave the password in the script) such as in the following:


# Transfer file(s)
set timeout 600
set sftppw "mypassword"
spawn /opt/openssh/bin/sftp importve@www.importve.com
expect "password:"
send "$sftppw\r";
expect "sftp>"
send "bye\r"
expect eof
exit