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Automatic script recording. We do not document the full API here, the best place to look for that is the apptools.scripting.recorder module which is reasonably well documented. We provide a high level overview of the library. The quickest way to get started is to look at a small example. Autoscript is the market leading manufacturer and provider of autocue, teleprompters, prompters, prompteur, autocue hire, prompter hire. The script command keeps action log for various tasks. The script records everything in a session such as things you type, things you see. To do this you just type script command on the terminal and type exit when finished. Everything between the script and the exit command is logged to the file. AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks in a way not possible or reliable with other languages. What makes AutoIt even better is the Macro recorder which can be used for lengthy and tedious sequences of keystrokes. The Macro recorder is available in the full version of SciTE editor. To access the Macro recorder, open SciTE editor and go to “Tools - AU3Recorder” or simply press “Alt + F6” shortcut key.

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Now you can Record and Playback Keystrokes easily with Keyboard Macro Software. This can be really handy when you want to automate specific keystrokes multiple number of times. Each Keystroke is composed of Key Down and Key Up, however combination keystrokes like Ctrl + W, Ctrl + Shift + T etc require more number of keystrokes and each individual keystroke requires 2 Keyboard Actions and all is managed by the Keystroke Recorder and Player.

Keyboard Macro Recorder and Player Menu in Auto Mouse Click Software

The above Screenshot displays how you can launch Keyboard Macro Software from the button Menu present on the Main Screen of the Software. Overall there are 3 ways in which you can launch the Keyboard Macro Software as enumerated below

Click with Middle Mouse Click on the Software to view a Menu containing a Menu Item allowing you to launch Keyboard Macro Software.
Click on the Top Left Corner of the Software’s Main Screen which invokes System Menu having a Menu Item to launch Keyboard Macro Software.
Click on the # button on the Main Screen of the Software as displayed in the above Screenshot and click on Launch Keyboard Macro.

When you have launched the Keyboard Macro Software, you can Record and Playback Keyboard Macros easily. Do have a look at the given below screenshot of the Keyboard Macro Software. All the Controls and features of the Keyboard Macro Software are self explanatory and you can get started right now without requiring any tutorial. The Keyboard Macro Software has a Recorder on the top area of the Software and Keyboard Macro Player at the bottom allowing you to use a Keyboard Shortcut to Start or Stop Keyboard Macro.

Note in the above Screenshot that a few Keystrokes have been recorded and a Keyboard Shortcut F6 has been assigned to Start / Stop Playback of the Recorded Macro. Note that you can specify Repeat Count to be more than 1 to Playback the recorded Keystrokes multiple times. The Keyboard Macro Software’s Main Screen is re sizable and remembers it’s position and size. Yes, you can even save the recorded Keystrokes to a Data File and Execute the Data file from the Auto Mouse Click Script with the help of Launch App Action. The Given below Screenshot displays how you can execute a Keyboard Macro from the Script. This Keyboard Macro has the advantage of allowing you to Edit Time Duration between Keystrokes, however if you do want to Record and Playback Mouse and Keyboard Actions, you can use Macro Recording Action.

Execute Keyboard Macro with Launch App Action of Auto Mouse Click

Note in the above Macro Script, there is only 1 Action inserted in the Macro Script. Executing Keyboard Macro from data File allows you to combine Keyboard Macro Execution with other Mouse, Keyboard and other Windows Actions available for automation. As of writing this post about Keyboard Macro Software, there are 62 Macro Actions available for Automation including Keyboard Automation Actions, Mouse Automation Actions, Window Automation Actions and other Windows Automation Actions.

All Macro Actions of Auto Mouse Click available for Automation

The Screenshot above displays 62 types of Macro Actions any of which you can add to your Macro Script and use them along with Keyboard Macro Recording. Note that the Editor of Keyboard Macro Software does allows you to edit time duration before Keystroke Down or Keystroke Up is executed. There is much more in this Auto Mouse Click Application making it the Best Mouse and Windows Automation Application available. The Latest version of the software does provides Sample Scripts which you can use to easily understand how to add Automation Action(s) to the Script and Execute them with Mouse or Keyboard Shortcuts.

Expect is a natural and intuitive automation scripting language that operates in much the same way humans do when interacting with a system. You type in commands and expect a certain response to your command. When you receive the expected response, you enter another command and so on. Expect works in the same way, except you have to provide the script with commands and expected responses to those commands. Basically, you have to script out the entire two-way “conversation.”

You can think of an Expect script as a dialog script written for two actors: a sender and a receiver. One of the more popular activities to automate is an SSH session between two hosts, in which one host is the sender (local host) and the other is the receiver (remote host). Being able to emulate every keystroke and create a true interactive session between two systems via a script is an exciting proposition.

Expect Setup

Most Linux distributions include Expect as part of the available and installable software packages. In other words, you won’t have to download and install from source code. Use your system’s package manager to download and install Expect and any required dependencies or associated packages. For example:

Once you have Expect installed, you can begin writing scripts.

Creating an Interactive SSH Session

As stated previously, you must provide both sides of the conversation in your script because you’re setting up an interactive system. Look at a few essential items before diving right into a script.

To make an Expect script executable as a standalone program, you must do two things: Make the script executable, and supply the path to the script for expect. The path on my system is: /usr/bin/expect; therefore, enter that path on the first line of your script with a preceding “shebang” (#!):

The -f switch tells Expect that it is reading commands from a file.

The spawn command spawns or launches an external command for you. In this case, ssh to a remote host (aspen):

Change the host aspen to your remote host. When you SSH to a remote system, you’re prompted for a password. This password prompt is what you “expect” from the remote system; therefore, you enter that expected response:

From the local side, you have to enter your password at the password prompt. To send anything to the remote system, it must be included in double quotes and must include a hard return (r). Change PASSWORD to your password:

Again, you have to enter the expected response from the remote system, which in this case is a user prompt ($).

Now that you’re logged in to the remote system, you can begin your interactive session on that remote host. The following send command issues the ps -ef |grep apache command:

Output will appear as STDOUT. After the command has executed, you’re returned to a prompt, so tell the Expect script that bit of information:

Finally, send the exit command to the remote system to log out. Don’t forget that hard return (r):

The script in its entirety looks as follows:

Change permissions on the script so that it is executable; for example,

and try it for yourself.

Expect Caveats

If your script hangs and doesn’t continue, try the command manually yourself and look for the response. If the remote system drops you to a prompt as its final act, then place that in your script (e.g., expect '$ '). Be sure you have entered the hard return (r) inside the closing quotation mark in your send line. You might also find that your system needs two backslashes on the send line for a hard return (r).

Sometimes Expect scripts execute too fast, and you won’t see your expected response. If that happens, place a sleep command and a number of seconds for the command preceeding it to wait for a response, or your data might be ignored.

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For example, if you connect to a remote system and there’s a delay in creating that connection, your script will continue to execute and fail because it sends commands before the remote system has time to respond.

You have to think about network delays, shell responses and system timing when scripting in Expect. Like any scripting language, Expect has its quirks, but you’ll find that it’s an easy way to automate those repetitious keystrokes and procedures. The time you spend debugging your scripts is well worth the effort.

Autoexpect

Of course, some lazy system administrators take lazy to a higher level and even cheat at writing Expect scripts by invoking a shell “watcher” or recorder script named Autoexpect. Once invoked, Autoexpect watches your every keystroke and records it to a file named, script.exp by default. You’ll almost certainly have to edit and prune this script to achieve your desired results; however, it can save hours of script debugging to have an almost complete script from which to work.

If you simply run a freshly created Autoexpect script, it will likely fail because, if you issued a command that answers your request by displaying information to the screen, the script picks up that answer, too, and copies it into the script file.

For example, if during your Autoexpect session, you type, ls, the result of that command appears in your script.exp file as well. After you’ve created a few Expect scripts by hand, you’ll appreciate the cleanup editing you have to do in an Autoexpect-created script.

To install Autoexpect, issue a command like:

You’ll likely require many more dependencies for this feature, so prepare yourself for a slight delay while everything installs.

Creating an Interactive SSH Session with Autoexpect

After installing Autoexpect and all of its required packages, you’re ready to create Expect scripts automatically by stepping through the procedures you want to automate. Using the above example, SSH to a remote system and run a

command and then log out.

Invoking Autoexpect is easy:

Although it looks as if nothing has happened or is happening, every keystroke you type will be recorded into script.exp. Every STDOUT response you receive will also be copied into that same file. Your entire session is recorded – but not just recorded, it is also formatted in Expect script style. To stop recording keystrokes to your script, press Ctrl+D on your keyboard to stop Autoexpect and copy the buffer to your file.

The complete transcription of this simple procedure is very long and includes a lot of commentary from the author, Don Libes:

You can see that you have a lot of cleanup to do before you distill this transcript down to its essential parts. Autoexpect also changes permissions on the script.exp file so that it is executable.

The parts you needed for this script to execute correctly are shown below in my cleaned up version.

You can see that the complex prompts, such as

have been shortened significantly to:

The prompt still works because Expect looks for the last few characters in an expect line and not the entire string. You could shorten the line that expects the password prompt from:

A word of caution against shortening your expect lines too much – it makes the script more difficult, not easier, to read and interpret in the future when you try to figure out what’s going on. You might not realize that ': ' is a password prompt. Unless you’re great at including comments in your scripts, you might spend hours debugging this shortened version.

Summary

To be perfectly honest, I only use Autoexpect when building an Expect draft script. To sit down and attempt writing Expect line-by-line just isn’t appealing after being seduced and ruined by the ease of removing unwanted lines from an Autoexpect-created script. Autoexpect makes using Expect fun and more intuitive by letting you perform a procedure one time instead of many. After discovering and using Autoexpect, my Expect scripting creation time and debug time has been cut by at least two-thirds. I suspect you’ll have much the same return on your time as well.

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