DISH

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

-h

Print help message describing shortly all command-line options

-H, --help

Comprehensive help including examples

--version

Print program version and copyright message, then exit

-V

Display the version number and exit

-C <dir>

Configuration directory (default is $HOME/.dish) where the config files - 'hosts', 'rests', 'pass', and 'options' - are located. When used, this option must be the first argument in the command line string, or the second if `-D' chosen! Alternatively, one can specify the configuration directory by defining the environment variable DISH_CONF.

-CC <dir>

Same as `-C' with fallback to default if local config not found; that is, in case the files 'pass', 'options' or 'rests' are absent in the given directory, however such files exist in $HOME/.dish, the latter will be considered. The only exception is '$HOME/.dish/hosts' which will be ignored. Using this option is equivalent to changing directory to the opted one and then executing `dish'.

-c <name>

Program (alias "connector") and its options used for connect; for example `rsh', whereas the spawned process will be "rsh $host <cmd>". Your default connector is `ssh'. Furthermore, by using a relevant text-based client as connector, one can access various kinds of hosts - switches, databases, and so on.

-e <cmd>

Command to execute

-E <cmd>

Execute command where also the connection part is specified e.g. "-E 'ssh $host date'" which is equal to "-e date". This option is incompatible with `-c' and `-e'.

-t

Force pseudo-tty allocation in ssh; this happens automatically in case of password change.

-T <time>

Time out for command execution - default are 30 sec.

-x <regex>

Regular expression for the shell prompt; After login into a system by telnet, mysql, sqlplus, or other interactive command-line clients, this value specifies which prompt is to be expected in the program's shell. It is relevant only when ssh/rsh, or scp/rcp are not used as connectors (see `-c'). The default value is `(%|\$|#|\>) ?$'.

-X <regex>

Regular expression for the password prompt; It is case-insensitive with default value `Password:'.

-g <file>

File with list of hosts/ip's/accounts to target; the command will be executed on those. The default host file is '$HOME/.dish/hosts' - normally per line one account of the form "user@host" if ssh is your choice for connector. In order to join lists use the option repeatedly. Alternatively, the environment variable DISH_HOSTS could be defined to specify the target hosts separated by blanks. By using this option within combination of `-r' or `-i' you can define various subsets of targeted hosts/accounts.

-r <file>

File with list of resting hosts/accounts to exclude; the default one is '$HOME/.dish/rests'. A "resting host" means one which will be excluded from the targets. The list of resting hosts or the file name could be specified also by the environment variable DISH_RESTS.

-i <file>

File with list of hosts/accounts to overlap with targeted hosts; there is no default file. Only overlapping hosts, such included in this list and at the same time defined as targets, will be processed.

-u <name>

User name - default is your local user name; it can be defined also by the external variable DISH_USER. Internally the value is accessible by the variable $user (see examples). Further, it is irrelevant in case that accounts of the form "user@host" are processed since they include already the user name.

-p <passwd>

Login password (-p '' = -pp = -a0); alias "login authentic" or "a0". If no authentication for login is required (no user and no password prompt appear), then use `/dev/null' as password. If the user name is requested, yet the password is an empty string, then `/dev/empty' has to be given as password. The value of this option could be also a password file (see `-P'). Eventually, one can define the password by setting an environment variable: export DISH_PASS=<password>

-p0

Login without authentication: the same as `-p /dev/null'

-P <file>

File with password(s); The default password file is '$HOME/.dish/pass'. It must be readable only for the user (file mode 600 or 700), otherwise the program exits with error status, but see also next option. Every line in the file can hold a password of the form "password[:username[:host]]". One can specify a list of hosts separated by `,'. Regular expressions for host names are also allowed (see the example configuration files in the distribution).

-m

Ignore the access permissions of the password file

-a <passwd>

Additional password for authentication (-a '' = -aa = -a1); alias "first authentic" or "a1". Inside the spawn process, if a program like smbmount, su, ssh, etc. asks for authentication, the a1-password is passed to it. In case that `-a' and `-n' are not involved options, and the login password a0 is not an empty one, then the a1-password is equal to it (see example c) below).

-A <passwd>

One more password for authentication (-A '' = -AA = -a2); alias "second authentic" or "a2". When a spawned process, after one authentication by the a1-password, asks again for a password, then a2 is sent.

-n <passwd>

New password in case of password change (-n '' = -nn = -ne)

-s [<time>]

Sequential processing of hosts (default mode) If a time interval in seconds is specified then processing of next host, after current host is finished, is delayed by this amount of time.

-F

Spawn processes in background - fork and disconnect; this way all hosts are processed essentially in parallel! It's a very powerful option - depending on you RAM size and memory utilization, it shouldn't be a problem to process a few hundreds of hosts in parallel. Anyway, be careful if you have too many hosts on the list - your could put your system under load. The stdout's of the background processes are redirected to '/dev/null', however you can use `-l' or `-L' to write the output to files.

-f

Spawn processes in background without disconnecting from tty; it's the same as `-F' whereas the stdout's of the spawned processes are sent to the terminal. Also the parent process waits for his children to finish.

-q

Be quiet - skip output from spawn and login; when working with the secure shell, it is also convenient to use ssh with the `-q' option.

-Q

Be QUIET - skip any output

-v

Be verbose (default) - overrides `-q' and `-Q'

-l <file>

Log command output to file; the output of the spawned processes is appended to the file.

-L <name>

Write a separate log for every host where <name> denotes the base name of the log file. The full name of a log file is defined as "<name>_<user@host>.log"

-j

Record the invoked command into a journal file with the name '$HOME/.dish/journal'. It keeps the history of the executed commands and their time of execution. An unique identifier is associated with every command.

-J

Record the invoked command and the spawned processes as well; write into the journal file the executed command as well as the single processes spawned and their time of execution.

-o <file>

File with command line options passed to the program; the options must be one per line, whereas the default option file is '$HOME/.dish/options'. By means of this file one can modify the standard configuration - set up fork mode as default, change the default connector, and so forth. When working in "copy mode", i.e. by invoking the program as 'dicp', '$HOME/.dish/options.dicp' is considered as default options file.

-d

enable expect's diagnostic output (look at `man expect')

-D

Debug mode (dry-run); print out environment variables, config file names, and commands to execute, then exit. This option should be used as first in the command line.

EXAMPLES

You should consider that the variables $host and $user are evaluated. Thus $host changes dynamically its value to the actual host/account name before a new process is spawned. The same is true for $user.

a) Check the date and uptime on hosts 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2

dish -e 'date \; uptime' root@192.168.0.1 root@192.168.0.2

b) Distribute '.profile' and '.bashrc' to guest accounts on 'host1' and 'host2'

dish -E "scp $HOME/.profile $HOME/.bashrc guest@\$host:" host1 host2

or

dicp -e "$HOME/.profile $HOME/.bashrc guest@:" host1 host2

or

dicp -g "host1 host2" $HOME/.profile $HOME/.bashrc guest@:

or

dicp -g "guest@host1 guest@host2" $HOME/.profile $HOME/.bashrc :

c) Copy remote '.profile' files into the local directory on localhost

dicp -g "guest@host1 guest@host2 admin@host2" :.profile .profile.\$host

Here, the name of the target file include the account name in order that the emerging local files have unique names.

d) Use ssh to login on 'host1' and copy from there '.profile' to 'host2'

Since the list of hosts can not be empty, a dummy host is used to initiate the process. The `-t' option for ssh is necessary to force pseudo-tty allocation in `ssh', otherwise `ssh' will fail with error on login. A second password (a1-password) is required for scp-authentication on 'host2':

dish -a '' -E 'ssh -t user1@host1 scp .profile user2@host2:' dummy_host

In case the password of 'user1' and 'user2' is the same, you will be asked only once for a login password for user1@host1:

dish -E 'ssh -t user1@host1 scp .profile user2@host2:' dummy_host

Or equivalently, and more simple:

dish -e 'scp .profile user2@host2:' user1@host1

e) Substitute lines with `START_XNTPD=' by `START_XNTPD="yes"' in /etc/rc.config

This command is executed as root user on every host listed in 'Hosts.root':

dish -u root -E 'ssh $user@$host "perl -pi -e \"s/^START_XNTPD=.*\$/START_XNTPD=\\\"yes\\\"/g;\" /etc/rc.config"' -g Hosts.root

f) Freeze accounts of users on a termination list

By using a script called `FreezeUser.sh', all accounts of users found on 'Terminate.User.lst' will be frozen today at 24:00 o'clock on both server groups as defined in files 'Hosts.1' and 'Hosts.2':

dish -E 'ssh root@$host "cat Terminate.User.lst | while read UN; do echo \"su - admin -c \\\$HOME/bin/FreezeUser.sh \$UN\" | at 24:00 ; done"' -g Hosts.1 -g Hosts.2

g) Print out remote configuration file of an automounter

Login as admin user on host 192.168.0.1, switch to root, then cat the file '/etc/auto.net' and print out the date. The `-a' option causes the program to ask you for the root password on remote host:

dish -u admin -a '' -E 'rsh -l $user $host su - root -c \"cat /etc/auto.net\; date\"' 192.168.0.1

h) Install a package on Debian GNU/Linux hosts

After mounting a fileserver over samba, install from there a debian dish-package on all Debian running servers, yet skip hosts on maintenance. Three different passwords are needed for authentication - one for login, next for su-root, and the last for mounting the fileserver:

dish -a0 -a1 -a2 -g Debian.up -r Debian.maint -e 'su - -c \"mount -t smbfs //FILESERVER/Packages.Dir /mnt/smb ; dpkg -i /mnt/smb/dish_1.17_all.deb\"'

i) Check for system load >2 using default 'hosts' and 'pass' config files

dish '(uptime |egrep \" (\[2-9\]|1\[0-9\])\\.\" && hostname) |paste - -'

j) Query a MySQL database on remote host 10.0.0.1

dish -pp -c 'mysql -p -u $user -h' -e 'use mysql; show tables; describe user;' -u root 10.0.0.1

k) Change password concurrently on all hosts/accounts

We assume that the list of user accounts is contained in file 'Accounts.lst', whereas an entry in the list is of the form "user@hostname". After command execution, you will be asked one time for a login password, and one more for the a1-password (which, in this case, must be the same as the login password). Then you have to type the new password, and finally retype it correctly:

dish -p '' -a '' -n '' -e passwd -g Accounts.lst

Or, alternatively, without retyping the login password, processing concurrently and quietly all hosts:

dish -g Accounts.lst -f -Q -pp -nn -e passwd

l) Change root password (don't use the `-a0' option)

If you are going to change the root password on remotehost, then try:

dish -nn -e passwd root@remotehost

The same as previous, but login as user admin (login password), then switch to root (a1-password), and finally update the root password:

dish -a1 -nn -e 'su -c passwd' admin@remotehost

Changing the password for admin on localhost, after login as root via telnet, is done by:

dish -nn -c telnet -u root -e 'passwd admin' localhost

Note that for password change, when `-p ""' (or equivalently `-a0' or `-pp') is not explicitly used, the assumption is made that `passwd' will not ask for the old password, as in case of a password change by root. The same example is valid also if you can login into account without typing a password, but then `passwd' prompts you to type the current one - such situation occurs when using a ssh-key for login authentication.

In case of properly prepared configuration files in '$HOME/.dish', one can use dish as a distributed shell for a virtual cluster of hosts, and run it without specifying any program parameters but merely issuing a command, as for instance `dish df -k /' or `dicp .profile :'.

As a very last note, one should be aware, that dish's automated login process is based on the premise that in case a program is asking for password, the prompt send to the terminal will include the case-insensitive string `Password:'. Otherwise the authentication procedure will fail. You can change this, in fact regular expression, by using the option `-X'.  

BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS

If Tcl is compiled with thread support, the program hangs when executed in parallel mode (options `-f' or `-F') - it seems to be a Tcl problem. Generally, at present Debian GNU/Linux (and other debian-based Linux distros as Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc.) pre-package Tcl with multi-thread support enabled. Therefore, on such systems dish fails to process hosts in parallel. In this case you can download the debian source package of Tcl, remove the option "--enable-threads" in 'debian/rules', rebuild the package with `dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot', and eventually install it. It could be a good idea to put the freshly installed package on hold. Otherwise, you should recompile it on every tcl upgrade.  

AUTHOR

REPORTING BUGS

COPYRIGHT

SEE ALSO

expect(1), tcl(3), ssh(1), rsh(1), telnet(1)

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

EXAMPLES

BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS

AUTHOR

REPORTING BUGS

COPYRIGHT

SEE ALSO