Question

I’m using PuTTY to remotely log onto my school’s host. Upon logging in, we are required to do these steps:

1. enter username
2. enter password
3. command “add oracle”
4. command “sqlplus”
5. enter username
6. enter password

I will be logging into this host a lot over the course of this semester and I was hoping to create a script that would eliminate the redundancy of the above steps. Ignoring the obvious security oversights of having my password in the script, how would I achieve this? I have zero experience with scripting, so your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: I played around with the command-line options for Putty and I was able to bypass steps 1-2 using:

putty -load "host" -l username -pw password

I’ve also created a shell file that looks like so:

#!/bin/bash

add oracle10g
sqlplus username password

When I try to add this option to the command-line using the -m option, it looks like PuTTY logs into the host and then immediately exits. Is there a way to keep my session open after running the shell file or am I using the -m option wrongly? Here is a link to a PuTTY guide that I have been following: http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.60/htmldoc/Chapter3.html.

Here is the total command that I am trying to run from the command-line:

putty -load "host" -l username -pw password -m c:\test.sh

Answer 1

Figured this out with the help of a friend. The -m PuTTY option will end your session immediately after it executes the shell file. What I’ve done instead is I’ve created a batch script called putty.bat with these contents on my Windows machine:

@echo off
putty -load "host" -l username -pw password

This logs me in remotely to the Linux host. On the host side, I created a shell file called sql with these contents:

#!/bin/tcsh

add oracle10g
sqlplus username password

My host’s Linux build used tcsh. Other Linux builds might use bash, so simply replace tcsh with bash and you should be fine.

To summarize, automating these steps are now done in two easy steps:

1. Double-click putty.bat. This opens PuTTY and logs me into the host.
2. Run command tcsh sql. This adds the oracle tool to my host, and logs me into the sql database.