Expect Scripts for ERS8600 Troubleshooting

Whenever you contact Nortel, Cisco or Juniper support these days your going to need to spend some time and effort collecting a fair amount of information for the engineer assigned to your case.

I’ve written a very simple Expect script that will telnet into a Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and issue a series of commands saving all the output so you can forward it to Nortel (or examine it yourself offline).

#!/usr/bin/expect -f
#
# Filename: /usr/local/etc/8600dump.exp
#
# Purpose:  Dump technical information from Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch
#           via telneting to the device and issuing various "show" cmds.
#           The output will then be saved to the working directory using
#           a filename based on the switch name used to call the script.
#
# Language: Expect
#
# Author:   Michael McNamara
#
# Date:     May 6, 2003
#
# Changes:
#
#   Sept 29, 2006: cleaned up script/updated documentation
#    Dec 30, 2005: added command line arguments for portability
#    Mar 18, 2005: added file logging for troubleshooting and monitoring
#    May 20, 2003: fine tuned script removing a great many "expect" commands.
#    May  6, 2003: original Expect script generated from auto_expect
#
# Notes:
#        Command Line Reference;
#          ./8600dump.exp <switch> <username> <password>
#
# This Expect script was generated by autoexpect on Thu Aug 18 10:57:50 2005
# Expect and autoexpect were both written by Don Libes, NIST.
#
# 

set force_conservative 0  ;# set to 1 to force conservative mode even if
              ;# script wasn't run conservatively originally
if {$force_conservative} {
    set send_slow {1 .1}
    proc send {ignore arg} {
        sleep .1
        exp_send -s -- $arg
    }
}

#
# Declare Global Variables
#
set PATH "/usr/local/etc/"
set TELNET "/usr/bin/telnet"

#
# Assign Command Line Variablbes
#
set SWITCH [lindex $argv 0]
set USERNAME [lindex $argv 1]
set PASSWD [lindex $argv 2]

#
# Time Date Stamp
#
set TODAY [timestamp -format %y%m%d ]
set WEEKDAY [timestamp -format %a ]
set DATE [timestamp -format %c ]

set send_human {.1 .3 1 .05 2}

######################################################################
# proc usage
#
# Purpose: display the usage information to the enduser.
######################################################################
proc usage {} {
    send_user "\n"
    send_user "ERROR: command line paramaters incorrect\n"
    send_user "\n"
    send_user "usage: 8600dump.exp <switch> <username> <password>\n"
    send_user "\n"
    send_user "    switch        the DNS or IP address of switch    \n"
    send_user "    username        the username for login to the switch    \n"
    send_user "    password        the password for username\n"
    send_user "\n"
    send_user "\n"
    exit
}
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
# M A I N    P R O G R A M
#######################################################################

if {[llength $argv]!=3} usage

log_file $PATH/$SWITCH.dump.log
log_user 0      # Disable logging to STDOUT
#log_user 1     # Enable logging to STDOUT

# Useful information out to logfile
send_log "******************************************************************\r\n"
send_log "* STARTING LOGFILE FOR $SWITCH ON $DATE         \r\n"
send_log "******************************************************************\r\n"

set timeout -1
spawn $TELNET $SWITCH
match_max 100000
expect "Connected to"
expect "Login: "
send -- "$USERNAME\r"
expect "Password: "
send -- "$PASSWD\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# DATE
send -- "date\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

####################################################
# YOU CAN ADD AND REMOVE COMMANDS AS YOU SEE FIT
####################################################

# CONFIG CLI MORE FALSE
send -- "config cli more false\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW TECH
send -- "show tech\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW CONFIG
send -- "show config\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW SYS TOPO
send -- "show sys topo\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW
send -- "show ports error show-all\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW PORT ERROR MAIN
#send -- "show port error main\r"
#expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW PORT ERROR EXT
#send -- "show port error ext\r"
#expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW IP ROUTE INFO ALTERNATIVE
#send -- "show ip route info alternative\r"
#expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# SHOW IP BGP SHOW-ALL
#send -- "show ip bgp show-all\r"
#expect -re "\:.\#|> "

# DATE
send -- "date\r"
expect -re "\:.\#|> "

send -- "logout\r"
expect eof

#######################################################################
# E N D    P R O G R A M
#######################################################################

You can also download the complete Expect script from my website here.

Occasionally you might have multiple switches that you’ll need to interrogate and for that I’ve written a quick and dirty little Bash shell script to loop through the FQDN of the switches calling the Expect script above.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Filename: /usr/local/etc/8600dump.sh
#
# Purpose:  Dump technical information from Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch
#           via telneting to the device and issuing various "show" cmds.
#           The output will then be saving to the working directory using
#           a filename based on the switch name used to call the script.
#
# Language: Bash Script
#
# Author:   Michael McNamara
#
# Date:     May 6, 2003
#
# Changes:
#
#   Sept 29, 2006: cleaned up script/updated documentation
#    Dec 30, 2005: added command line arguments for portability
#    Mar 18, 2005: added file logging for troubleshooting and monitoring
#    May 20, 2003: fine tuned script removing a great many "expect" commands.
#    May  6, 2003: original Expect script generated from auto_expect
#
# Notes:
#        Command Line Reference;
#          ./8600dump.sh
#
# There are system and network specific variables below. Obviously the "PATH"
# to the location of the Bash script and supporting Expect script. The location
# of MUTT if email is used and most importantly the username and password to the
# Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600. I would highly suggest using the ro (ReadOnly)
# account for all scripting purposes that are "read-only" in nature. The last most
# obvious piece is the list of switches that you'd like the script run against.
#

# Global Variables
PATH_TO=/usr/local/etc/mlh
DUMP=8600dump.exp
MAIL_LIST=''
PAGER_LIST=''
ERROR_FLAG=0
MAILEXE='/usr/bin/mutt'
MAILTXT='/tmp/mutt.txt'
LOCKFILE=/tmp/trace.lck
USERNAME=ro
PASSWORD=

SWITCHES='switch1.domain switch2.domain'

#############################################################################
#  B E G I N   M A I N
#############################################################################

for SWITCH in $SWITCHES
do
    $PATH_TO/$DUMP $SWITCH $USERNAME $PASSWORD
    $MAILEXE -s "ALERT: Dump Report for $SWITCH" $MAIL_LIST -a $PATH_TO/$SWITCH.trace.log < $MAILTXT
done

exit
#############################################################################
#  E N D   M A I N
#############################################################################

You can also download the complete shell script here.

The use of Expect really helps save me a lot of time and it speeds up the troubleshooting process with the vendor.

Cheers!