Develop Reference

Paramiko: calling "cd" command with exec_command does nothing

I have the following program using Paramiko:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import paramiko
hostname = '192.168.1.12'
port = 22
username = 'root'
password = 'whatl0ol'
if __name__ == "__main__":
paramiko.util.log_to_file('paramiko.log')
ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.load_system_host_keys()
ssh.connect(hostname, port, username, password)
while True:
pick = raw_input("sshpy: ")
stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command(pick)
print stdout.readlines()
But when I connect and try to use cd, it doesn't work. How can I fix this?

It looks like you are implementing some kind of interactive program that allows executing a sequence of commands on the server.
The SSHClient.exec_command executes each command in a separate "exec" channel. The individual commands run in their own environment. So if you execute cd command, it has no effect at all on subsequent commands. They will again start in user's home directory.
If you want to implement an interactive shell session, use SSHClient.invoke_shell.
For an example, see how to interact with Paramiko's interactive shell session?
See also Execute multiple commands in Paramiko so that commands are affected by their predecessors.

Paramiko SSH_Client opens a new session and executes the command in that session and once command execution gets completed, the session channel is closed.
Executing 'cd' command would have been done in the first session and later on, for the next command the session would start again from home directory.
If you want to hold the session, use invoke_shell for an interactive session.

I needed to change directories and run an executable. I have to do this all in one command. The client unit was a windows 10 machine.
The cmd shell in windows is soo problematic! Commands are different. ';' between commands doesn't work. You need to use '&'. cd d:/someDirectory doesn't work. You need '/d'. 'pwd' doesn't work. Also, echo%cd% to pwd doesn't work reliably. 'cd' with no parameters for pwd does work reliably. I was hoping the not working list would save you time. This is where it landed.
cmd = 'cd /d D:\someDirectory & SomeExecutable.exe
someParameter'
ssh_stdin, ssh_stdout, ssh_stderr =
ssh.exec_command(cmd_1_to_execute)
To check directory change use the following:
cmd = 'cd /d D:\someDirectory & cd'
ssh_stdin, ssh_stdout, ssh_stderr =
ssh.exec_command(cmd_1_to_execute)
output = ssh_stdout.readline()
error = ssh_stderr.readline()
print("output: " + output)
print("error: " + error)

Connect to gce instance and run command

I have a simple request. I want to connect to an already existing google compute engine instance, run a command, and close the connection.
I have used the great sample code here for instance creation and deletion.
Additionally, I have a startup script running which works perfectly.
Now I am reading this article to use paramiko to connect to my instance. This may or may not be the best thing to do, so please correct me if I am going down the wrong path.
I have the following sample code:
import paramiko
ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(
paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
ssh.connect('35.***.***.**',username='user',password='pass')
stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command("sudo su -")
stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command("ls -l")
stdout.readlines()
Now - I am not sure which username or password I am supposed to use.
When I run this code, I do not get the list of files and directories in my root as I want, but I do get a list of files and directories in the default user account's home - so it is connecting.
My goal is to connect to a gce instance, run a command, and that is it! For some reason it is trickier than I anticipated. Am I doing something wrong here?

If you are facing a similar use case you can explore gcloud ssh. It worked for me, but I cannot comment if this is best practice or not.
My solution here was something like the following:
import subprocess
def check_for_completion(instance_name = ""):
cmd = "gcloud compute ssh %s --zone=us-east1-b --command=\"sudo -S -i -u root -p '' ls /root/temp/ \""%(instance_name)
try:
res = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True)
items = str(res).split('\n')
return {'response':items,'complete':False}
except:
return {'response':None,'complete':True}

How do I start an SSH session locally using Python?

What I mean to ask is, if I am on System "A" (Linux) and I want to ssh into System "B" (Windows): On System "A", I can do ssh admin#xx.xx.xx.xx which will prompt me to a password and when that gets authenticated, I will get to the "$" of System "B" (on System "A").
how do I send username and password together as a single line (since I want to use a script)
How to achieve the scenario that I have above.

I generally do it with Paramiko, its easier
import paramiko
# ssh
print 'enter ssh'
ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy()) # this will automatically add the keys
ssh.connect(machineHostName, username=user, password=password)
# Run your commands
# example 1 : ls command
print 'do a ls command'
stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('ls')
print stdout.readlines()
time.sleep(2)
# example 2 : change ip address
print 'changing ip address'
stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('sed -i -- s/'+oldIp+'/'+newIp+'/g /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0')
print stdout.readlines()
time.sleep(2)
To install Paramiko, you can download the tar.gz file from here.
Assuming you are really new to python, how to install this :
Download the tar.gz file
Extract the contents to a folder
cd into that extracted folder, from your terminal
execute this python setup.py install
then you can try something like the above example
NOTE : if you get stuck with installation comment here, and I can help you.

Instead of using a passphrase for authentication, you could use ssh keys as described here.
Start your ssh client on System "A" using subprocess.call(['/path/to/ssh', 'admin#xx.xx.xx.xx', 'remote_script.sh'])

Execute a command on Remote Machine in Python

I am writing a program in python on Ubuntu, to execute a command ls -l on RaspberryPi, connect with Network.
Can anybody guide me on how do I do that?

Sure, there are several ways to do it!
Let's say you've got a Raspberry Pi on a raspberry.lan host and your username is irfan.
subprocess
It's the default Python library that runs commands.
You can make it run ssh and do whatever you need on a remote server.
scrat has it covered in his answer. You definitely should do this if you don't want to use any third-party libraries.
You can also automate the password/passphrase entering using pexpect.
paramiko
paramiko is a third-party library that adds SSH-protocol support, so it can work like an SSH-client.
The example code that would connect to the server, execute and grab the results of the ls -l command would look like that:
import paramiko
client = paramiko.SSHClient()
client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
client.connect('raspberry.lan', username='irfan', password='my_strong_password')
stdin, stdout, stderr = client.exec_command('ls -l')
for line in stdout:
print line.strip('\n')
client.close()
fabric
You can also achieve it using fabric.
Fabric is a deployment tool which executes various commands on remote servers.
It's often used to run stuff on a remote server, so you could easily put your latest version of the web application, restart a web-server and whatnot with a single command. Actually, you can run the same command on multiple servers, which is awesome!
Though it was made as a deploying and remote management tool, you still can use it to execute basic commands.
# fabfile.py
from fabric.api import *
def list_files():
with cd('/'): # change the directory to '/'
result = run('ls -l') # run a 'ls -l' command
# you can do something with the result here,
# though it will still be displayed in fabric itself.
It's like typing cd / and ls -l in the remote server, so you'll get the list of directories in your root folder.
Then run in the shell:
fab list_files
It will prompt for an server address:
No hosts found. Please specify (single) host string for connection: irfan#raspberry.lan
A quick note: You can also assign a username and a host right in a fab command:
fab list_files -U irfan -H raspberry.lan
Or you could put a host into the env.hosts variable in your fabfile. Here's how to do it.
Then you'll be prompted for a SSH password:
[irfan#raspberry.lan] run: ls -l
[irfan#raspberry.lan] Login password for 'irfan':
And then the command will be ran successfully.
[irfan#raspberry.lan] out: total 84
[irfan#raspberry.lan] out: drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 9 05:54 bin
[irfan#raspberry.lan] out: drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 19 08:19 boot
...

Simple example from here:
import subprocess
import sys
HOST="www.example.org"
# Ports are handled in ~/.ssh/config since we use OpenSSH
COMMAND="uname -a"
ssh = subprocess.Popen(["ssh", "%s" % HOST, COMMAND],
shell=False,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
result = ssh.stdout.readlines()
if result == []:
error = ssh.stderr.readlines()
print >>sys.stderr, "ERROR: %s" % error
else:
print result
It does exactly what you want: connects over ssh, executes command, returns output. No third party library needed.

You may use below method with linux/ Unix 's built in ssh command.
import os
os.system('ssh username#ip bash < local_script.sh >> /local/path/output.txt 2>&1')
os.system('ssh username#ip python < local_program.py >> /local/path/output.txt 2>&1')

Paramiko module can be used to run multiple commands by invoking shell. Here I created class to invoke ssh shell
class ShellHandler:
def __init__(self, host, user, psw):
logger.debug("Initialising instance of ShellHandler host:{0}".format(host))
try:
self.ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
self.ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
self.ssh.connect(host, username=user, password=psw, port=22)
self.channel = self.ssh.invoke_shell()
except:
logger.error("Error Creating ssh connection to {0}".format(host))
logger.error("Exiting ShellHandler")
return
self.psw=psw
self.stdin = self.channel.makefile('wb')
self.stdout = self.channel.makefile('r')
self.host=host
time.sleep(2)
while not self.channel.recv_ready():
time.sleep(2)
self.initialprompt=""
while self.channel.recv_ready():
rl, wl, xl = select.select([ self.stdout.channel ], [ ], [ ], 0.0)
if len(rl) > 0:
tmp = self.stdout.channel.recv(24)
self.initialprompt=self.initialprompt+str(tmp.decode())
def __del__(self):
self.ssh.close()
logger.info("closed connection to {0}".format(self.host))
def execute(self, cmd):
cmd = cmd.strip('\n')
self.stdin.write(cmd + '\n')
#self.stdin.write(self.psw +'\n')
self.stdin.flush()
time.sleep(1)
while not self.stdout.channel.recv_ready():
time.sleep(2)
logger.debug("Waiting for recv_ready")
output=""
while self.channel.recv_ready():
rl, wl, xl = select.select([ self.stdout.channel ], [ ], [ ], 0.0)
if len(rl) > 0:
tmp = self.stdout.channel.recv(24)
output=output+str(tmp.decode())
return output
If creating different shell each time does not matter to you then you can use method as below.
def run_cmd(self,cmd):
try:
cmd=cmd+'\n'
#self.ssh.settimeout(60)
stdin,stdout,stderr=self.ssh.exec_command(cmd)
while not stdout.channel.eof_received:
time.sleep(3)
logger.debug("Waiting for eof_received")
out=""
while stdout.channel.recv_ready():
err=stderr.read()
if err:
print("Error: ",my_hostname, str(err))
return False
out=out+stdout.read()
if out:
return out
except:
error=sys.exc_info()
logger.error(error)
return False

Paramiko and Pseudo-tty Allocation

I'm trying to use Paramiko to connect to a remote host and execute a number of text file substitutions.
i, o, e = client.exec_command("perl -p -i -e 's/" + initial + "/"
+ replaced + "/g'" + conf);
Some of these commands need to be run as sudo, which results in:
sudo: sorry, you must have a tty to
run sudo
I can force pseudo-tty allocation with the -t switch and ssh.
Is it possible to do the same thing using paramiko?

Actually it's quite simple. Just:
stdin, stdout, stderr = client.exec_command(command, get_pty=True)

The following code works for me:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import paramiko
ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
ssh.connect('localhost',username='root',password='secret')
chan = ssh.get_transport().open_session()
chan.get_pty()
chan.exec_command('tty')
print(chan.recv(1024))
This was just assembled from looking at a few examples online... not sure if its the "right" way.

I think you want the invoke_shell method of the SSHClient object (I'd love to give a URL but the paramiko docs at lag.net are frame-heavy and just won't show me a specific URL for a given spot in the docs) -- it gives you a Channel, on which you can do exec_command and the like, but does that through a pseudo-terminal (complete with terminal type and numbers of rows and columns!-) which seems to be what you're asking for.

According to the sudo manpage:
The -S (stdin) option causes sudo to read the password from the standard input instead of the terminal device. The
password must be followed by a newline character.
You can write to the stdin because it is a file object with write():
import paramiko
client = paramiko.client.SSHClient()
client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.client.AutoAddPolicy())
client.connect(hostname='localhost', port=22, username='user', password='password')
stdin, stdout, stderr = client.exec_command('sudo -S aptitude update')
stdin.write('password\n')
stdin.flush()
# print the results
print stdout.read()
client.close()