I'm writing a python script that executes a csh script in Solaris 10. The csh script prompts the user for the root password (which I know) but I'm not sure how to make the python script answer the prompt with the password. Is this possible? Here is what I'm using to execute the csh script:
import commands
commands.getoutput('server stop')
Have a look at the pexpect module. It is designed to deal with interactive programs, which seems to be your case.
Oh, and remember that hard-encoding root's password in a shell or python script is potentially a security hole :D
Use subprocess. Call Popen() to create your process and use communicate() to send it text. Sorry, forgot to include the PIPE..
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
proc = Popen(['server', 'stop'], stdin=PIPE)
proc.communicate('password')
You would do better do avoid the password and try a scheme like sudo and sudoers. Pexpect, mentioned elsewhere, is not part of the standard library.
import pexpect
child = pexpect.spawn('server stop')
child.expect_exact('Password:')
child.sendline('password')
print "Stopping the servers..."
index = child.expect_exact(['Server processes successfully stopped.', 'Server is not running...'], 60)
child.expect(pexpect.EOF)
Did the trick! Pexpect rules!
Add input= in proc.communicate() make it run, for guys who like to use standard lib.
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
proc = Popen(['server', 'stop'], stdin=PIPE)
proc.communicate(input='password')
Should be able to pass it as a parameter. something like:
commands.getoutput('server stop -p password')
This seems to work better:
import popen2
(stdout, stdin) = popen2.popen2('server stop')
stdin.write("password")
But it's not 100% yet. Even though "password" is the correct password I'm still getting su: Sorry back from the csh script when it's trying to su to root.
To avoid having to answer the Password question in the python script I'm just going to run the script as root. This question is still unanswered but I guess I'll just do it this way for now.
