1. Expect

a program to control interactive applications
- it maybe possible to control interactive applications from other scripting languages as well
  - python, perl
expect programming is very easy compared to perl!
- crackers use expect to try and gain access to machines via ssh, ftp, telnet
  - ask AJC Blyth

2. Expect example uses

as system administrators we may have need for automating interactive activities
- testing remote access works (telnet, ftp)
- down loading ftp files
- changing password
- running security checks
we could build a script which test that our server is safe
- from guest accounts
- no telnet access is allowed
- no ssh from lab machines is allowed
  - but ssh from privileged machines is working

3. Expect and examples

automatically creating passwords
- can be done via C
  - takes a lot of time to write such programs
  - will it work with NIS, shadow passwords or Kerboros?
with expect we run the user program passwd and send keyboard input

4. Password Trial

advice first run the program that you want to connect to expect by hand
- note the output and build expect around it
- so let us change a password for bob

passwd bob
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

passwords were entered, but obviously the passwd program did not echo back our input!

5. Trial results

we note that the program prompted us for a password twice
- both times it ended its sentence with password:
- as we are lazy we can wait until we see password: and ignore anything that was before
  - why is this good practice?
  - what must we watch out for?

#!/usr/bin/expect


spawn passwd [lindex $argv 0]
set password [lindex $argv 1]
expect "password:"
send "$password\r"
expect "password:"
send "$password\r"
expect eof

6. Testing the example

./exp1.exp bob 123
spawn passwd bob
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

here we change user bob password to 123

7. Script explanation

#!/usr/bin/expect


spawn passwd [lindex $argv 0]
set password [lindex $argv 1]
expect "password:"
send "$password\r"
expect "password:"
send "$password\r"
expect eof

#!/usr/bin/expect script is interpreted via expect located in directory /usr/bin
spawn passwd [lindex $argv 0]
- run the program passwd bob and connect expect to this program
- note that [lindex $argv 0] resolves to bob
  - actually argument one (hmm..)

8. Script explanation

set password [lindex $argv 1]
- defines a variable password and sets it to 123
expect "password:"
- waits for the program passwd to issue password: before continuing
send "$password\r"
- sends the users password to passwd followed by a carriage return
note the script repeats the last two commands, why?
finally expect eof wait for passwd to finish

9. Anchoring

you might want to match text at the beginning or end of a line, this is via
- ^ for the beginning of a line
- $ for the end of a line
also note that * means any number of characters

10. Pattern action pairs

#!/usr/bin/expect

set timeout 15


expect "hi"  { send "You said hi\n" } \
     "hello"  { send "Hello to you\n" } \
     "bye"    { send "Goodbye\n" } \
     timeout  { send "I’m fed up\nbye\n" }

if we run the script as shown below and type nothing we get:
```
I’m fed up
bye
```
note that different actions can be associated with different input
- note also that the default timeout time is set at 10 seconds to disable the timeout facility
- set timeout -1

11. Autoftp and expect

so far we have built the front end to autoftp
- scans the input file for URLs
- handles arguments
we will use expect to control ftp, we will build this up this utility
firstly we will ftp manually

12. Ftp session

fred@merlin:$ ftp guenevere
Connected to guenevere.
220 guenevere FTP server (Version wu-2.6.0(1))
Name (guenevere:fred): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail
331 address as password.
Password:nobody@nowhere.com


230-Welcome, archive user anonymous@merlin !
230-
230-The local time is: Mon Feb 12 15:18:14 2001
230-
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.

ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 20
d--x--x--x    2 0 0 4096 Aug 10  2000 bin
d--x--x--x    2 0 0 4096 Aug 10  2000 etc
d--x--x--x    2 0 0 4096 Aug 10  2000 lib
dr-xr-xr-x    4 0 0 4096 Sep 28 22:17 pub
-rw-r--r--    1 0 0  346 Aug 10  2000 welcome.msg
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
221-You have transferred 0 bytes in 0 files.
221-Total traffic for this session was 1182
221-bytes in 1 transfers.
221-Thank you for using the FTP service on
221-guenevere. Goodbye.

13. Simple semi automated ftp script

this script will log us into a site and then interact with the user

#!/usr/bin/expect


set site [lindex $argv 0]
spawn ftp $site
expect "Name"
send "anonymous\r"
expect "Password:"
send "nobody@nowhere.com\r"
interact

note the interact statement
- connects the keyboard to the ftp program
most ftp servers do not check for a valid email address!

14. Expect control constructs

expect uses extends the Tcl language
expect provides: if then else, while, set, interact, expect, for, switch, incr, return, proc
```
if {$count < 0} {
   set total 1
}
```

if {$count < 5} {
   puts "count is less than five"
} else {
   puts "count is not less than five"
}

you must place the statement begin brace on the same line as the if or else
- if in doubt follow the templates in these notes

15. More complex if

if {$count < 0} {
   puts "count is less than zero"
} elseif {$count > 0 {
   puts "count is greater than zero"
} else {
   puts "count is equal to zero"
}

16. While statement

#!/usr/bin/expect


set count 10
while {$count > 0} {
   puts "the value of count is $count"
   set count [expr $count-1]
}

note the effect of the braces in {$count > 0}
- they defer evaluation of $count
- if you remove the braces then $count > 0 is internally replaced via: 10 > 0

17. for command

has the syntax

for start expression next {

}

#!/usr/bin/expect


for {set count 10} {$count > 0} {incr count -1} {
   puts "the value of count is $count"
}

18. Expressions

0 is false, 1 is true
boolean operators || (or), && (and), ! (not)
comparison operators <=, ==, != etc
the brackets [ ] give this expression a higher precedence
so in the example
```
set count [expr $count-1]
```
the [expr $count-1] is evaluated before the set!

19. proc and return

#!/usr/bin/expect

proc mycompare {a b} {
    if {$a < $b} {
        puts "$a is less than $b"
        return -1
    } elseif {$a > $b} {
        puts "$a is greater than $b"
        return 1
    } else {
        puts "$a is equal to $b"
        return 0
    }
}


set value [mycompare 1 4]
puts "comparison returned $value"

./exp6.exp
1 is less than 4
comparison returned -1

20. Autoftp Tutorial

#!/usr/bin/expect
# this program is called exp7.exp
proc connect {} {
   expect {
       "Name*:" {
           send "anonymous\r"
           expect {
               "Password:" {
                   send "nobody@nowhere.com\r"
                   expect "login ok*ftp>"
                   return 0
               }
           }
       }
   }
   # timed out
   return 1
}

set site [lindex $argv 0]
spawn ftp $site
while {[connect]} {
    send "quit\r"
    expect eof
    spawn ftp $site
}
send "binary\r"
send "cd  [lindex $argv 1]\r"
send "get [lindex $argv 2]\r"
send "quit\r"
expect eof

21. Laboratory session

work on your assignment
try out the following expect example
- you will need to add your password at the position yourpassword

#!/usr/bin/expect

log_user 0
spawn pwd
expect -re "(^.*/.*)$"
set localdir $expect_out(1,string)
expect eof


log_user 0
spawn ssh moppsy.comp.glam.ac.uk
expect "assword: "
send "yourpassword\r"
expect "\\$"
send "cd $localdir"
interact

Index

1. Expect
2. Expect example uses
3. Expect and examples
4. Password Trial
5. Trial results
6. Testing the example
7. Script explanation
8. Script explanation
9. Anchoring
10. Pattern action pairs
11. Autoftp and expect
12. Ftp session
13. Simple semi automated ftp script
14. Expect control constructs
15. More complex if
16. While statement
17. for command
18. Expressions
19. proc and return
20. Autoftp Tutorial
21. Laboratory session
Index

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