How to use expect inside bash script [duplicate]

Question

Could anybody please tell me why this is not working?

#!/bin/bash
cd /home
touch somefile
/usr/bin/expect<<FILETRANSFER
spawn scp -r -P remoteServerPort somefile remoteServerIP:/home
expect "assword:"
send "MyPassWord\r"
interact
FILETRANSFER
echo "It's done"

It doesn't give any error but file is not transferred to remote server.I have tried many ways still couldn't find any solution.

A better way would be to avoid typing or sending any password with ssh (also scp ). Read some ssh tutorial and use a public key. — Basile Starynkevitch
– Basile Starynkevitch, Commented Jul 17, 2017 at 13:06
/usr/bin/expect<<FILETRANSFER, here you are missing a space before << — Jahid
– Jahid, Commented Jul 17, 2017 at 13:26
thanks for your replies. @ Basile Starynkevitch I can't use public key for some reasons. @ Jahid added space but still not working. — Hasan Rumman
– Hasan Rumman, Commented Jul 17, 2017 at 13:56
This script looks a bit "pseudo" -- are you using shell variables inside the expect body? Normally I would do expect <<'FILETRANSFER' where the single quotes effectively quote the entire here-doc. — glenn jackman
– glenn jackman, Commented Jul 17, 2017 at 14:10

Cristian Ramon-Cortes · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-17 15:09:37Z

17

The bash script you have defined is passing the expect commands on the standard input of expect. However, the expect command requires its arguments on a file or as an argument using the -c option.

You have several options but to add the less modifications on your script you just need to use the process substitution to create a here-document (temporary) for the expect command.

#!/bin/bash 

  echo "[DEBUG] INIT BASH"

  cd /home
  touch somefile

  /usr/bin/expect <(cat << EOF
spawn scp -r -P remoteServerPort somefile remoteServerIP:/home
expect "Password:"
send "MyPassWord\r"
interact
EOF
)

  echo "[DEBUG] END BASH"

answered Jul 17, 2017 at 15:09

Cristian Ramon-Cortes

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4 Comments

Cristian Ramon-Cortes Over a year ago

Btw, I have just checked and there is a SO answer with all the available options here: stackoverflow.com/questions/41165719/…

glenn jackman Over a year ago

No, expect is perfectly fine reading the commands from stdin as posted in the question.

Sridhar Sarnobat Over a year ago

Is there any way to do this with Bourne Shell?

Cristian Ramon-Cortes Over a year ago

Actually this same script should work in sh since there is nothing bash dependant.

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