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claude.ai just suggested this as a tool for automating a workflow that involves ssh'ing into another machine and running some commands as sudo. I'm surprised I'

• lo0dot0 2y ago
  What the hell. If the device you are logging into supports sudo then it probably supports bash or python too. In that case a better solution is to create a script on the target device and then call that script over ssh, using key-based authentication. You do not need expect. Expect is mainly used on devices with a rigid terminal UI that do not support scripting and require interactive password authentication.
  • actinium226 2y ago
    That's definitely do-able, but I didn't want to do that because it adds a level of indirection. When I put my relevant commands in a script, I have to start thinking about what directory it's in and how that affects its operations. I also have to think about how to handle errors for failures of the various commands, and I can only handle those errors on the target machine. If I'd doing expect and a command has an error, I can handle it on my local machine which might have more info (maybe I can set it up to switch to a backup machine or something). Are these solvable problems? Sure, for me it's a matter of taste. Also, your comment would read almost identically and perhaps even better without the first three words.