Command Line Options ==================== Overview -------- You can pass parameters (or lists of parameters) into the templates and use them to drive what happens on the remote host. Exscript easily supports logging, authentication mechanisms such as TACACS and takes care of synchronizing the login procedure between multiple running connections. These features are enabled using simple command line options. The following options are currently provided: :: Options: --version show program's version number and exit -h, --help show this help message and exit --account-pool=FILE Reads the user/password combination from the given file instead of prompting on the command line. The file may also contain more than one user/password combination, in which case the accounts are used round robin. -c NUM, --connections=NUM Maximum number of concurrent connections. NUM is a number between 1 and 20, default is 1. --csv-hosts=FILE Loads a list of hostnames and definitions from the given file. The first line of the file must have the column headers in the following syntax: "hostname [variable] [variable] ...", where the fields are separated by tabs, "hostname" is the keyword "hostname" and "variable" is a unique name under which the column is accessed in the script. The following lines contain the hostname in the first column, and the values of the variables in the following columns. -d PAIR, --define=PAIR Defines a variable that is passed to the script. PAIR has the following syntax: STRING=STRING. --default-domain=STRING The IP domain name that is used if a given hostname has no domain appended. --delete-logs Delete logs of successful operations when done. -e EXSCRIPT, --execute=EXSCRIPT Interprets the given string as the script. --hosts=FILE Loads a list of hostnames from the given file (one host per line). -i, --non-interactive Do not ask for a username or password. -l DIR, --logdir=DIR Logs any communication into the directory with the given name. Each filename consists of the hostname with "_log" appended. Errors are written to a separate file, where the filename consists of the hostname with ".log.error" appended. --no-echo Turns off the echo, such that the network activity is no longer written to stdout. This is already the default behavior if the -c option was given with a number greater than 1. -n, --no-authentication When given, the authentication procedure is skipped. Implies -i. --no-auto-logout Do not attempt to execute the exit or quit command at the end of a script. --no-prompt Do not wait for a prompt anywhere. Note that this will also cause Exscript to disable commands that require a prompt, such as "extract". --no-initial-prompt Do not wait for a prompt after sending the password. --no-strip Do not strip the first line of each response. --overwrite-logs Instructs Exscript to overwrite existing logfiles. The default is to append the output if a log already exists. -p STRING, --protocol=STRING Specify which protocol to use to connect to the remote host. Allowed values for STRING include: dummy, pseudo, ssh, ssh1, ssh2, telnet. The default protocol is telnet. --retry=NUM Defines the number of retries per host on failure. Default is 0. --retry-login=NUM Defines the number of retries per host on login failure. Default is 0. --sleep=TIME Waits for the specified time before running the script. TIME is a timespec as specified by the 'sleep' Unix command. --ssh-auto-verify Automatically confirms the 'Host key changed' SSH error message with 'yes'. Highly insecure and not recommended. --ssh-key=FILE Specify a key file that is passed to the SSH client. This is equivalent to using the "-i" parameter of the openssh command line client. -v NUM, --verbose=NUM Print out debug information about the network activity. NUM is a number between 0 (min) and 5 (max). Default is 1. -V NUM, --parser-verbose=NUM Print out debug information about the Exscript template parser. NUM is a number between 0 (min) and 5 (max). Default is 0. Using Account Pooling --------------------- It is possible to provide an account pool from which Exscript takes a user account whenever it needs to log into a remote host. Depending on the authentification mechanism used in your network, you may significantly increase the speed of parallel connections by using more than one account in parallel. The following steps need to be taken to use the feature: #. Create a file with the following format:: [account-pool] user=password other_user=another_password somebody=yet_another_password Note that the password needs to be base64 encrypted, just putting plain passwords there will NOT work. #. Save the file. It is assumed that you are aware of the security implications of saving your login passwords in a text file. #. Start Exscript with the ``–account-pool FILE`` option. For example:: exscript --account-pool /home/user/my_accounts my.exscript host4 Using a CSV file as input ------------------------- By providing the –csv-hosts option you may pass a list of hosts to Exscript while at the same time providing a number of variables to the script. The CSV file should have the following format:: hostname my_variable another_variable myhost value another_value yourhost hello world Note that fields are separated using the tab character, and the first line must start with the string “hostname” and is followed by a list of column names. In the Exscript, you may then access the variables using those column names:: ls -l $my_variable touch $another_variable