expect script works fine standalone not from bash script

Question

I am running a expect script,which login to a server check if iptables running and return the log file of the status. There is a hostfile also given with server list and password, expect is being called from a shell script which it sending correct parameter; running those parameters individually i can execute the expect script too, but it is just not working in tandem. the hostfile below:

cat hostfile 10.20.52.167|abcdef 10.20.52.138|zyxwvu 

the shell script being executed:

cat iptables #! /bin/bash #!/usr/bin/expect -f while read line do ipaddress=`echo $line | awk -F'|' '{print $1}'` password=`echo $line | awk -F'|' '{print $2}'` echo "./testcase_3 $ipaddress \"$password\" " sleep 5 done < hostfile 

And lastly the expect script:

cat testcase_3 #!/usr/bin/expect -f #! /bin/bash set timeout 60 set host [lindex $argv 0] set password [lindex $argv 1] log_user 1 set user subhasish set logfile output.txt foreach host $host password $password { spawn ssh $user@$host expect "*?assword:*" send -- "$password\r" sleep 2 expect "$" send -- "sudo su\r" expect -gl {*password for subhasish:*} send -- "$password\r" expect "#" send -- "service iptables status\r" log_file /home/subhasish/output.log expect "#" log_file } send -- "exit\r"; send -- "exit\r"; exit 0 

I have got no clue where it is going wrong, please help. The iptables script sends argument like "./testcase_3 ... "******" ", which if i run in the commandline works expected by creating output.log. Nothing happens however if i run the iptables script directly...

Answer 1

Hard to tell because as you're posted, iptables does not invoke the expect script. To debug the expect script, add this near the top: exp_internal 1

Since the shell's read command can grab multiple words if the right field separator is provided, I would write the bash script like this:

while IFS='|' read ipaddress password; do echo "./testcase_3 $ipaddress \"$password\"" ./testcase_3 "$ipaddress" "$password" sleep 5 done < hostfile