Shell Programming and Scripting

Good morning!

I am using a shell script to back up user email files to a remote location. The problem is, one (and apparently more than one) users have the symbol "@" in their password. As you can see from the line:

/sbin/mount_smbfs //sampleusername:userpassword@home@XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/mailshare

( Where their user password is: "userpassword@home" )

This then causes the script to believe that the host server name begins earlier than it really does, which causes the mount to fail.

Aside from the obvious answer of having them change their password (and this is a senior research scientist I'm dealing with, so I'm not keen on starting a big issue with them), is there a way to set off the password?

For example, when you try to copy a folder with spaces in the name, you can set it off with double quotes. Is there any such method for the password?

I have already tried single and double quotes already, to no avail. I also tried, on advice from another, to use the backlash just before the @ character within the password. However, this seemed to set off the entire rest of the line, as that yielded the error:

mount_smbfs: server connection failed: No route to host

You would think it wouldn't be a big deal to just have her change her password.. but such is life when dealing with academia.

I should also add that the double quotes do work in the same script for setting off part of a directory, as in:

ditto -V ~/Library/"Application Support/AddressBook" "/Volumes/Dropbox/BrianW/mac/mail"

But it does not seem to work in a mount command for the password call. Is there any way to set off the password, or must I simply have them change it to remove any 'invalid' characters? Such as @

as i understand, you need to get the ip address out, so that you can connect. you cannot assume things in password, because a password may contain an ip address itself (!!)
i think you need to parse backwards, from right to left, or maybe reverse the string and then get the ip address out using the leftmost match (substr etc.) and then reverse again. sorry cant tell u the commands offhand, maybe u can do some research and if u face issues post with ur code.

good luck!

I will need that luck, what you're describing is a good deal beyond my range of experience, heh. I'm starting to learn shell programming and scripting from the ground up, essentially. I take it then, that there is no way to simply 'set off' the password?

I seem to recall smbmnt allows you to backslash-escape any @ character in the password itself.

try this..

#!/bin/sh

var='apasswordwith123splchars()/"*&/("*%andthe atsignyouwant@moretext@11.22.33.44'

#Get the total length
varlen=`echo $var | wc -c`
varlen=$((varlen))

ctr=$((varlen-1))

#Parse right to left...
while true
do
if [ $ctr -eq 0 ]
then
# "@" was not found, do error handling here..
break
fi

nthchar=`expr substr "$var" "$ctr" 1`;

if [ "$nthchar" == "@" ]
then
# Found the @ sign
break
fi

ctr=$((ctr-1))

done

iplen=`expr "$varlen" - "$ctr"`

ipaddress=`expr substr "$var" "$ctr" "$varlen"`

echo $ipaddress