UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

i have a script that runs the below command on a remote box.

ssh root@$responsea ' echo " " ; echo " " ; echo " " ; df -kl ; sleep 3 ; /apps/scripts/deleter ; vi /apps/scripts/deleter '

now, if the command above doesn't work like it should be. the user needs to edit a file on the remote host.

however, everytime i add vi to the end of the sequence of commands to run i get a error that says something like:

Vim: Warning: Output is not to a terminal
Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal

does anyone know how to deal with this so the user can effectively edit using vi on the remote host?

I'd have to point out it is definitely not a good idea to allow a user to vi anything as root, especially a script executable as root. May as well change the name of the script to "hackme" or "hoseme".

What type of changes are you talking about? Is it really necessary that a human do the actual editing? What exactly are you trying to accomplish with the editing?
I take it that you want the user to look at the output of df -kl, and then make a decision on what needs to be purged, then edit the deleter accordingly so it can delete whatver needs to be deleted to free some space?

yes. usually the script will automatically run without user intervention. however, sometimes it doesn't because there aren't files to delete that are older than the threshold number given in the file.

so if the script doesn't work because of that i want the user to be able to go in and lower the number and keep lowering it till the script recognizes and deletes the files matching the threshold given.

Ok.
Why don't you edit the script to first check and see if there are any files to delete and If there aren't any files that match the original criteria, have the script check for newer files? You can loop this until a) you delete files and free space or b) you get to a point where you can't delete anything and get a notification.

There's absolutely no need to have a person plug in dates.

smart idea. thanks.