Shell Programming and Scripting

How would I write an expect script to automate ssh and what file extention do expect files use?

bump.

Bad bump.

Question unclear (hence no replies). Please rephrase.

Are you asking about expect, or ssh? And what file extensions?

Actually my question seems completely straightforward...

I would like to know how to write a script using expect that would automate an ssh command.

Something like a script that knows a username, password, and ip address-- I run the script, and it logs me into a linux box

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As for file extentions, that's also very straightforward...

I'm wondering what the file extention is for an expect script file. Similar to how the extension to a shell script file is .sh, or a text file is .txt

expect can use any name/file extension.. I give them .exp.

Is there are a reason you cannot use ssh keys? expect will do whatever you want... but ssh/bash/ksh or whatever shell is probably way more easy to work iwth.

I need the script to ssh into a switch and change some values, so I'm thinking expect is my best option to accomplish that.

Forgive us for being a bit jaded; this place is barraged with folks brute-forcing plaintext passwords into ssh for no good reason, to the that point I've got a template prepared to answer them. A blackbox that can't use keys is a good reason. Sorry.

Here, have the first google hit for "how to use expect". A nice, simple general illustration of the process.

Keep in mind that passwords passed along the commandline are visible to anyone on the system for the entire duration of the process they were passed to. best to either hardcode it or pipe it into stdin or some such.