Question

I want to telnet into a Cisco router, login and execute a Tcl script that is locally stored in the router’s flash. This Tcl script does some processing and should return a nested hash (preferred) or a string that represents a XML document.

Is there a way to map a Tcl nested hash to a Perl nested hash, or to return a string that represents a XML document? Does Expect allow me to do any of the above, and how?

Answer 1

This expect script should take the file off the router and leave it in /tmp/xferfile.txt. It will need to be modified with the commands that actually produce the file, since I do not have those, I left placeholders for them in the script. You should be able to use Donal’s code for that.

It’s been a while since I’ve played with expect and cisco IOS, so bear with me if this needs some debugging on your end.

#!/usr/bin/expect
set timeout 20
set ip [lindex $argv 0]
set user [lindex $argv 1]
set password [lindex $argv 2]
set prompt1 "Router>"
set prompt2 "Router#"
set prompt3 "bash\$"
set ctrld [expr ("d" & 01xF)]

spawn ssh "$user\@$ip"
expect "Password:"
send "$password\r";

# switch to privileged EXEC level 
expect $prompt1 { send "enable" }

# ==================================================
# Modify this line for your needs
# ==================================================
expect $prompt2 { send "command to print Tcl hash" }

# Capture output to variable
set results $expect_out(buffer)

# leave EXEC level
expect $prompt2 { send "exit" }
# Command to log out of router
expect $prompt1 { send "exit" }

# Create text file on localhost
spawn "#!/bin/bash"
expect prompt3 { 
    send "cat > /tmp/xferfile.txt"
    sleep 5
    send $results
    send $crtld
    }

expect prompt3 { send "exit" }